tain future investments. My orders were to invest in this
prepared stock only _after_ October fifteenth. Meanwhile the
manipulation of this amount was in my hands for eight weeks.

"I knew the forty thousand I had purposely invested in these stocks
would double itself by the fifteenth of October; this was the date set.
I knew this because I had the guaranty of the three men behind me; and,
knowing this, I took a hundred thousand of the sum intrusted to me, in
order to make a deal with a Wall Street firm which would net me twenty
thousand within two weeks.

"I knew perfectly well what I was doing--but there was never any
intention on my part of robbery or embezzlement. I knew the sum eighty
thousand, from my personal investment of forty thousand, was due on
October fifteenth; this, plus the twenty thousand due from the Wall
Street deal, would insure the syndicate from any loss. In fact, they
would never know that the money had been used by me to antedate the
investment of the three hundred thousand--a part of the net yearly
working profits from the quarries--intrusted to me."

He paused for a moment to pass his hand over his forehead; his eyebrows
contracted suddenly as if he were in pain.

"The temptation to take this money, although knowing well enough it was
not mine to take, was too great for me. It was the resultant of every
force of, I might say, my special business propulsion. This temptation
lay along the lines on which I had built up my life: the pursuance of a
line of action by which I might get rich quick.--Then came the crash.
That special guaranteed stock broke--never to rally in time to save
me--sixty-five points. The syndicate sent out warning signals to me that
I was just in time to save any part of the three hundred thousand from
investment in those stocks. Of course, I got no return from the forty
thousand of my personal investment, and the hundred thousand I had used
for the deal went down too. So much for the guaranty of the
multi-millionaires.--Just then, when everything was chaotic and a big
panic threatened, came a call from the manager of the quarries for
immediate funds; the men were getting uneasy because pay was two weeks
overdue. The syndicate told me to apply the working margin of three
hundred thousand at once for this purpose. Of course there was a
shortage; it was bound to be discovered. I tried to procrastinate--tried
to put off the payment of the men; then came the threatened strike o