Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-02-17
BY ARTHUR STRINGER,


cious double handled club bag of black sea-
lion. put out his light. emerged whistling
and dirt-soiled from his manhole. and hav-
ing rounded the block. slipped into his base
ment printing office and changed his clothes.
What most impressed and amazed Durkin.
when once his Quadruplex had been adjusted
and pressed into service. was the absolute
precision and thoroughness with which the
Curry line of action had been prearranged.
1t was as diffusedly spectacular as some
great international campaign. This Machi-
avellian OjeratOr's private wires were hum
ming with messages, deputies throughout
the country were standing at his beck and
call. em.s5ares and underlngs were waiting
to snatch UP the crumbs which fell from
his overloaded board, his corps Of clerks
were toiling away feverishly as ever
Chicago and ST. Louis and Memphis and
New Orleans we're being thrown into fever
of excitement and foreboding, fortunes were
being wrested away in Liverpool, the Lam
caster mills were shutting down. and still
cotton was going up. up, point by point;
timid clerks and messenger boys and wild
owS. even. were pouring their pennies and
arated them from 20-cent cotton and for
tune.
Yet only two men knew and understood
just how this Napoleon of commerce was to
abandon and leave to its own blind fate this
great. uncomprehendiDg. maddened army OF
followers. Spectators who had made their
first money in following at his heels were
putting not only their winnings, but all
their original capital, and often that Of
others, on the long side of the great bull
ever alluring Fata Morgana of 2O-cent cot
ton. Even warier spirits, suburban toilers,
sober-minded mechanics. humble store
traders, who had long regarded change as
very Golgotha of extortion and disaster.
had been tainted with the mysterious psy-
chologic infection. which had raced from
city to town and from town to hamlet. Men
bowed before a new faith and a new creed,
and that faith and creed lay compactly in
three pregnant words: Twenty-cent cotton.
Yet this magnetic and spectacular bull
leader. Durkin felt, was Infinitely wiser and
craftier than any of those he led Curry, at
heart, knew and saw the utter hopelessness
of his cause: he realized that he was only
| toying and trifiing with great current that
| in the end, when its moment came. would
i sweep him and his followers away like SO
many chips He faced and foresaw this
| calamity and out Of the calamity which no
touch of romanticism in his nature yelled to
| his eyes. he quietly prepared to reap his
| harvest.
| AS these thoughts ran through Durkin's
busy mind, some vague idea of the power
which reposed in his own knowledge Of how
| great the current was to become, and just
| what turn 1t was to take. once more awak-
| faint. he prided himself. which somewhere
| or at some time invariably confused the
/ Judgment of the gambler and the habitua
! criminal-for they, after all, he often felt
i
| thou,Ih dreamers grown sour through stag
| nation. Yet he could see. in the present
| case. how gigantic his opportunities were
| Properly equipped. with very meager sum
| millions lay before him, inevitably. Blu.
the stain of illegitimacy chung to his meth.
DDS. and as It was. his returns at best could
! be only a paltry few thousands-f1fty Of
sixty or even a hundred thousand at most
| With Curry It would be millions.
| Durkin remembered his frugal train-dis.
patching days at the barren little wooder
| station at Komoka Junction. where forty
dollars a month had seemed q fortune t.
him. He lighted q Carolina Perfecto. ard
| inhaled 1t slowly and deliberately. demand
| ing to know why he ought not to be salts
/ fed with himself In those earlier days ht
used to eat his dinner out OF a tin pail. car
ried each morning from his bald and squalii
boarding house. Today, he remembered. HI
was to take luncheon with Frances at TIN
Casa Napoleon. with its exquisite Franco
Spanish cookery, Its tubbed palms, and 1t.
general air Of exotic well-being.
His luncheon with Frances, however, wa,
not what he had looked for. He met her II
front Of the West 9th street restaurant al
she was stepping out Of her motor-cab. Sh,
seemed unusually pale and worried, though
an honestly happy smile dittsa across be