of Reinhart's ruthless
act."

Bob had listened, but made no comment until she was through; then he said,
"It looks to me as though the market is shaping up so that we may be able
to do something soon." It was evident to both of us that he had some plan
in mind.

Later we learned that that night Beulah wrote her father a long letter,
telling him what she had done; that she had made almost two millions
profit from her operations, that they had been lost, and that the outlook
was not reassuring. She begged him to prepare himself for the final
calamity; promising that if there were no change for the better by
December 1st, she would come home to be with him when the blow fell. She
begged him to prepare to meet it like a Sands, and assured him that if
worse came to worst she would earn enough to keep poverty away. Judge
Sands would receive this letter the second day following, Friday, the 13th
day of November. My God! how well I know the date. It is seared into my
brain as though with a white-hot iron.

After our talk with Beulah Sands I begged Bob to dine with me and go over
matters at length to see if we could not find a way out to relief.

"No, Jim, I have work to do to-night, worn that won't wait. That Tariff
Bill was buttoned up to-day, and it has just been announced that the
Sugar directors have declared a big extra stock dividend. Things have come
out just about as I told you they would, and the stock is climbing to-day.
They say it will touch 200 to-morrow and 'the Street' is predicting 250
for it in ten days. Barry Conant has been a steady buyer all day and the
news bureaus announced that Camemeyer and the 'Standard Oil' are twenty
millions winners. They say the Washington gamblers, the Congressmen,
Senators, and Cabinet members with their heelers and lobbyists have made a
killing. About every one seems to have fattened up, Jim, but you and me
and Beulah Sands and the public. The public gets the axe both ways as
usual. They have been shaken out of their stock, and they will be
compelled to pay millions more each year for their sugar than they would
if this law had not been made for their benefit. Jim, there is no
disguising the fact that the American people are as helpless in the hands
of these thugs of the 'System' as though they lived in the realm of the
Sultan, where a few cutthroat brigands are licensed to rob and oppress to
their heart's content. Jim Randolph, you know this game of finance. You
know how it