ars.

"You are one of the few men who do not have to fall down and worship the
name of Wentworth," he said.

"Well, I rather think not," said Mr. Kestrel, with a glint in his eyes,
as he recalled Norman Wentworth's scorn of him at the board-meeting
years before, when Norman had defended Keith against him.

"--Or this new man, Keith, who is undertaking to teach New York
finance?"

Mr. Kestrel gave a hard little laugh, which was more like a cough than
an expression of mirth, but which meant that he was amused.

"Well, neither do I," said Wickersham. "To tell you frankly, I hate them
both, though there is money, and big money, in this, as you can see for
yourself from what I have said. This is my real reason for wanting you
in it. If you jump in and hammer down those things, you will clean them
out. I have the old patents to all the lands that Keith sold those
people. They antedate the titles under which Rawson claims. If you can
break up the deal now, we will go in and recover the lands from Rawson.
Wentworth is so deep in that he'll never pull through, and his friend
Keith has staked everything on this one toss."

Old Kestrel's parchment face was inscrutable as he gazed at Wickersham
and declared that he did not know about that. He did not believe in
having animosities in business matters, as it marred one's judgment.
But Wickersham knew enough to be sure that the seed he had planted would
bear fruit, and that Kestrel would stake something on the chance.

In this he was not deceived. The next day Mr. Kestrel acceded to his
plan.

For some days after that there appeared in a certain paper a series of
attacks on various lines of property holdings, that was characterized by
other papers as a "strong bearish movement." The same paper contained a
vicious article about the attempt to unload worthless coal-lands on
gullible Englishmen. Meantime Wickersham, foreseeing failure, acted
independently.

The attack might not have amounted to a great deal but for one of those
untimely accidents that sometimes overthrow all calculations. One of the
keenest and oldest financiers in the city suddenly dropped dead, and a
stampede started on the Stock Exchange. It was stayed in a little while,
but meantime a number of men had been hard hit, and among these was
Norman Wentworth. The papers next day announced the names of those who
had suffered, and much space was given in one of them to the decline of
the old firm of Wentworth & S