ow. We
can take it as a principle that none of them will go bankrupt and lose
his place on the exchange unless he is pressed tight to the wall. Well,
our business is to learn how far each fellow is from the wall to start
with. Then we keep track of him, one turn of the screw after another,
till we see he's got just enough left to buy himself out. Then we'll let
him out. See?"

"It's cruel, isn't it?" she commented, calmly meditative, after a little
pause.

"Everything in the City is cruel," he assured her with a light tone.
"All speculative business is cruel. Take our case, for example. I
estimate in a rough way that these fourteen men will have to pay over
to us, in differences and in final sales, say seven hundred thousand
pounds--maybe eight hundred. Well, now, not one of those fellows ever
earned a single sovereign of that money. They've taken the whole of
it from others, and these others took it from others still, and so on
almost indefinitely. There isn't a sovereign of it that hasn't been
through twenty hands, or fifty for that matter, since the last man who
had done some honest work for it parted company with it. Well--money
like that belongs to those who are in possession of it, only so long
as they are strong enough to hold on to it. When someone stronger still
comes along, he takes it away from them. They don't complain: they don't
cry and say it's cruel. They know it's the rule of the game. They accept
it--and begin at once looking out for a new set of fools and weaklings
to recoup themselves on. That's the way the City goes."

Thorpe had concluded his philosophical remarks with ruminative slowness.
As he lapsed into silence now, he fell to studying his own hands on
the desk-top before him. He stretched out the fingers, curved them
in different degrees, then closed them tight and turned the bulky
hard-looking fists round for inspection in varying aspects.

"That's the kind of hand," he began again, thoughtfully, "that breaks
the Jew in the long run, if there's only grit enough behind it. I used
to watch those Jews' hands, a year ago, when I was dining and wining
them. They're all thin and wiry and full of veins. Their fingers
are never still; they twist round and keep stirring like a lobster's
feelers. But there aint any real strength in 'em. They get hold of most
of the things that are going, because they're eternally on the move.
It's their hellish industry and activity that gives them such a pull,
an