After listening to all that Armstrong had to say, Macgowan took action. He put up Reese Armstrong at the Lawyers' Club, obtained a hearing from certain men of his acquaintance--and Consolidated Securities was incorporated. Armstrong held no office but retained a controlling interest. Macgowan became a director and remained as counsel. The other men, of whom Judge Holcomb and Findlater were the most prominent, became directors without salary, being paid outright in stock for their support. The first subsidiary was the Armstrong Company, purely a stock-selling concern. Not blinded by this success, Armstrong knew that he was only on trial. None of these men had great confidence in his scheme. They were willing to take a chance, hoping that some day would appear Fortunatus, to loose for them the string that bound the sock of the small investor. Armstrong, to prove that he was the man, went to work. About himself Armstrong gathered men devoted to him, an organization covering New York and adjacent cities. His chief helper was Jimmy Wren--impulsive, ardent, imaginative; not a half-way man. Somehow, into all these men Armstrong injected his own personality; or, perhaps, he picked them with extraordinary skill. In any event, he accomplished a miracle. Through them he reached out and touched the small investor, became acquainted with him, won his confidence, induced him to become part owner of Consolidated. From its inception the struggle was aureated with success. Two small manufacturing concerns were taken over, reorganized, placed on a paying basis. Here again Armstrong showed his value as a judge of men. Consolidated Securities became a material fact, and prospered, and was ready to reach out anew. At the end of the year's work, Armstrong went to Evansville to claim his bride. He had met Dorothy Deming in New York, renewing an old acquaintance begun two years before in Evansville, and now upleaped between them a swift and spontaneous mutual knowledge that they were one. Almost from the first there was a complete comprehension, a deep and terrible kinship of spirit which, had there been barriers, would have borne them down. But there were no barriers to this love, save Armstrong's ambition for what he deemed final success; and this success came swiftly--all too swiftly, some said. And now Armstrong, shirt-sleeved, sat at the library table of J. Fortescue Deming. As he glanced at the faces around him, Armstrong awaited quietly the coming event. He knew as well as they--perhaps better--what to expect, but he had not imagined that it would come just yet, above all at this day and hour. Yet during the past few months he had seen it approach, with an inevitable certainty, nor could he hinder it. One does not, unfortunately, extend warnings of failure to a prospective father-in-law; not, at least, with any great success. Armstrong had refused to endanger his state of blessedness by attempting to pry open the lids of a blind man.