The Deluge | Page 8

to put everything worth having. His business judgment was shrewd, but
he cared nothing for the big game he was playing except as a game.
Like myself, he was simply a sportsman--and, I think, that is why we
liked each other. He could have trusted almost any one that came into
contact with him; but he trusted nobody, and frankly warned every one
not to trust him--a safe frankness, for his charm caused it to be
forgotten or ignored. He would do anything to gain an object, however
trivial, which chanced to attract him; once it was his, he would throw it
aside as carelessly as an ill-fitting collar.
His expression, as he came into my office, was one of cynical
amusement, as if he were saying to himself: "Our friend Blacklock has
caught the swollen head at last." Not a suggestion of ill humor, of
resentment at my impertinence--for, in the circumstances, I had been
guilty of an impertinence. Just languid, amused patience with the frailty
of a friend. "I see," said he, "that you have got Textile up to
eighty-five."
He was the head of the Textile Trust which had been built by his
brother-in-law and had fallen to him in the confusion following his
brother-in-law's death. As he was just then needing some money for his
share in the National Coal undertaking, he had directed me to push
Textile up toward par and unload him of two or three hundred thousand
shares--he, of course, to repurchase the shares after he had taken profits
and Textile had dropped back to its normal fifty.
"I'll have it up to ninety-eight by the middle of next month," said I.
"And there I think we'd better stop."
"Stop at about ninety," said he. "That will give me all I find I'll need for
this Coal business. I don't want to be bothered with hunting up an
investment."
I shook my head. "I must put it up to within a point or two of par," I
declared. "In my public letter I've been saying it would go above
ninety-five, and I never deceive my public."
He smiled--my notion of honesty always amused him. "As you please,"
he said with a shrug. Then I saw a serious look--just a fleeting flash of
warning--behind his smiling mask; and he added carelessly: "Be careful
about your own personal play. I doubt if Textile can be put any higher."
It must have been my mood that prevented those words from making

the impression on me they should have made. Instead of appreciating at
once and at its full value this characteristic and amazingly friendly
signal of caution, I showed how stupidly inattentive I was by saying:
"Something doing? Something new?"
But he had already gone further than his notion of friendship warranted.
So he replied: "Oh, no. Simply that everything's uncertain nowadays."
My mind had been all this time on those Manasquale mining properties.
I now said: "Has Roebuck told you that I had to buy those mines on my
own account?"
"Yes," he said. He hesitated, and again he gave me a look whose
meaning came to me only when it was too late. "I think, Blacklock,
you'd better turn them over to me."
"I can't," I answered. "I gave my word."
"As you please," said he.
Apparently the matter didn't interest him. He began to talk of the
performances of my little two-year-old, Beachcomber; and after twenty
minutes or so, he drifted away. "I envy you your enthusiasm," he said,
pausing in my doorway. "Wherever I am, I wish I were somewhere else.
Whatever I'm doing, I wish I were doing something else. Where do you
get all this joy of the fight? What the devil are you fighting for?"
He didn't wait for a reply.
I thought over my situation steadily for several days. I went down to
my country place. I looked everywhere among all my belongings,
searching, searching, restless, impatient. At last I knew what ailed
me--what the lack was that yawned so gloomily from everything I had
once thought beautiful, had once found sufficient. I was in the midst of
the splendid, terraced pansy beds my gardeners had just set out; I
stopped short and slapped my thigh. "A woman!" I exclaimed. "That's
what I need. A woman--the right sort of woman--a wife!"

IV
A CANDIDATE FOR "RESPECTABILITY"
To handle this new business properly I must put myself in position to
look the whole field over. I must get in line and in touch with
"respectability." When Sam Ellersly came in for his "rations," I said:
"Sam, I want you to put me up at the Travelers Club."
"The Travelers!" echoed he, with a blank look.

"The Travelers," said I. "It's about the best of the big clubs, isn't it? And