Kingsbury County independent. (DeSmet, Kingsbury County, S.D.) 1894-1929, 1906-11-09

I lls'A5AAA u AaA q oNNiAl1 III Al 4
recall that he said once: It's your
face, Blackjack. If you could only
manage 80 look less like a Spanish bull
! dashing into the ring, gazing joyfully
. about for somebody to gore and toss!'
But / can't" said /. And | would
; Mt IL I could-because that's mel"
one Saturday he brought a dancing
master down to my country place
Dawn Hill, which l bought of the Du-
mont estate and completely remod-
eled. / saw what the mans business
was the instant l looked at him. ]
left him in the nall and took Monson
into my den.
Not fer mel" I protested. There's
where l draw the line
You don't understand" he urged.
This fellow, this AIphonse Lynch, out
in the hall there, isn't going to teach
you dancing so that you may dance,
but so hat you shall be less awk-
ward in strange company"
My walk suits me-" said L. And
I don't fall over furniture or trip peo-
pie up"
True enough" he answered. But
rml haven't the complete control OF
vc-r body thatll make you uncon-
Sous of it when you're suddenly shot
by y butler into a room full of people
vsu suspect of being unfliendly and
l~Titical."
Not until he used his authority as
Observation-Disclosures, did / yield. 1t
MAY seem absurd to some for a seri-
Gus man like me solemnly to caper
about in imitation of q S~craping, grim
acing French-Irishman; but Monson
was light, and | haven't in the least
minded the ridicule he has brought on
me by tattling this and h other things
everywhere, since he turned against
me. It's nothing new under the sun
e.. Al ~@,-7r 81 oh 1,nlylnhnnIG IN
laugh where they ought to applaud;
their habit is to laugh and to applaud
in the wrong places. There's no part
of my career that I'm prouder of than
the whole of this thorough course of
education in the trifies that are yet
not triies. To have been Ignorant is
no disgrace; the disgrace comes when
one persists in ignorance and glories
in 1t.
Yet those who make the most pre-
tensions in this topsy-turvy Of a world
regard 1t as a disgrace to have been
obscure and ignorant, and pride them
selves upon their persistence in their
own kin Of obscurity n ignorance!
Nc wonder the few strong men do
about as they please with such a race
of miscompoopery. If they didn't grow
old and tired, what would they not do?
All this time l was giving myself-or
thought l was giving myself-chiefly to
my business, as usual. l know now that
the new interests had In fact crowded
the things down town far into the
background, had impaired my judg-
ment, had suspended my common
sense; but I had no inkling of his
then. The most important matter that
was occupying me down town was
pushing Textile up toward par. Lang
IONS doubts, little though they influ-
enced me, still made enough of an i'm
preston to cause me to test the mar
ket. I sold for him at ninety, as he
had directed; l solo in quantity every
day. But no matter how much l un-
loaded, the price showed no tendency
to break.
This" said / to myself, "is a testi-
monial 10 the skill with which l pre-
pared for my bull campaign" And
tina seemed to me-all unsuspicious as
/ then was-a sufficient explanation of
the steadiness of the stock which 1
had worked to establish in the public
confidence.
1 felt that, if my matrimonial plans
should turn put as / confidently ex-
pected, I should need a much larger
fortune than l had-for l was deter
mined that my wife should AVE an
establishment second to none. Accord
ingly, l enlarged my original plan. I
had intended to keep close to Langdon
in that plunge; 1 believed l controlled
the market, but 1 hadn't been in Wall
street twenty years without learning
that the worst thunderbolts fall from
cloudless skies. Without being in the
least suspicious of Langdon, and sim
ply acting on the general principle that
surprise and treachery are part of the
code of high finance, | had prepared to
guard, first, against being k in the
rear by a secret change Of plan on
Il n p~1nn'o mart nn6 CoRnn1 AGAINST
being involved and overwhelmed by a
sudden secret attack on him from some
associate of his who might think he
a laid himself open to successful
raiding.
The market is especially dangerous
toward Christmas and in the spring
toward Christmas the big fellows Of
ten juggle the stock to get the money
for their big Christmas gifts and aims;
toward spring the motive is, Of course,
the extra summer expenses OF their
families and the commencement gifts
to colleges. 1t was o late in the
spring.
1 say I had intended to be cautious.
I abandoned caution and rushed in
boldly, feeling that the market was,
in general, safe and that Textile was
under my control-and that was one
of the kings of high finance, with my
lucky star in the zenith. l decided to
continue my bull campaign on my w
account for two weeks after l had un-
loaded for Langdon, to continue 1T un-
til the stock was at par. l had no diff
ficulty in pushing 1t up to n~inety-sev-
en-, and / was not alarmed when I
found myself loaded up with II, quoted
at ninety-eight for the preferred and
thirty for the common. / assumes that
l was practically it's only supporter
and that ii would slowly settle back
as l slowly withdrew my support.
To my surprise, the stock did not
yield Immediately under my efforts to
depress ii. l sold more heavily; Tex
tile continued to show a tendency to
rise. / sold still more heavily; it
broke a point or two, then steadied and
rose again. Instead of sending out
along my secret lines for inside infor-
nation, as l SHOULD have done, and
would nave done a / not been in a
state Of hypnotized Judgment went
TO Langdon! l who had been studying
those sc~oundrels for t~wenty-odd years,
and dealing directly with and for them
for ten years!
Continued Next Weekly