By these methods and by having the stock listed on the London curb he was able to induce certain curb or “dog” brokers to go short of this stock without having any of it in their possession. Finally they began to sell so freely and to pay so little attention to the amount that was being sold that it was easy for Torbey to employ agents to buy from all of them freely on margin. And then, as the law of the curb and the state permitted, he had demanded (through them, of course) the actual delivery of the shares, the full curb value of the stock being offered. Of course the brokers had none, although they had sold thousands; nor had any one else except Torbey, who had seen to it that all outstanding stock had been recalled to his safe. That meant that they must come to Torbey to buy or face a jail sentence, and accordingly they had flocked to his office, only to be properly mulcted for the total face value of the shares when they came. Well, he had done that same thing in New York. Following the example of the good Torbey, he had picked up a few unimportant options in Honduras, far from any railroad, and had come to New York to launch Calamita. Just as Torbey had done, he had looked for a rich widow, a piano manufacturer’s wife in this case, and had persuaded her that there were millions in it. From her he had gone on to Wall Street and the curb and had done almost exactly as Torbey had done.... Only that fellow De Malquit had killed himself, and that was not so pleasant. He hadn’t anticipated that anything like that would happen! That unfortunate wife of his. And those two children made orphans. That was the darkest spot. He hadn’t known, of course, that De Malquit himself was helping orphans—or—And from there he had gone on to the forests of Washington and Oregon, where he had bought immense tracts on which even yet he was realizing, more and more. And from there it had been an easy step to oil in southern California and Mexico—Ah, Greasadick, another sad case!—And from there to mines and government concessions in Peru and Ecuador, and the still greater ones in Argentina and Chile. Money came fast to those who had it. At last, having accumulated a fortune of at least nine millions, he had been able to interest Nadia, and through her the clever and well-to-do fashionable set who had backed his projects with their free capital. And by now his fortune had swollen to almost forty millions.