The erstwhile State Attorney and official was at once caught up in the vortex of his new office. He devoted all his time and energies to it. He did not establish himself in an arm-chair in a comfortable well-furnished room, but began to build up his position from the very bottom, became a police-spy and a detective, unwearied in his efforts to collect all the evidence he could lay his hands on. He did it all himself, and when he realized, as he soon did, the slight extent of his own powers when pitted against the widespread national vice, he conceived the idea of recruiting a guard and rallying force from the ranks of the victims. Accordingly, he began with men whose wealth was not displayed in their houses, but who, through their connection with the social order which had come to grief, had been forced into the opposition, both as human beings and as politicians. He knew that none were more responsible for the existing state of affairs than these men, because, at a time when resistance was a necessity, they had been cowardly and kept out of the way. But he knew, too, that in them a new force of decision had come to birth, that they longed to make good where they had failed. Above all, there were the rich young men without any profession. In the disorganization brought about in the country by the depreciation and disorder of the currency, they were unable to carry on life as before. Their society was permeated by the “new rich,” who made use of them because they allowed themselves to be made use of. The State Attorney von Wenk had turned to his whilom comrades, from whom the divers duties of his office had long separated him, and the man whom he had first encountered and won over to his side was Karstens. It was from him that he had learned all the circumstances of Hull’s strange and suspicious gambling adventure. He compared Hull’s story with the other material which he had hastily collected. Fresh complaints were constantly being made about swindlers who worked so cleverly that no taint of suspicion could attach to them, yet who won so consistently that it was not conceivable that this could be merely luck. From some similarities in detail in the various stories Wenk was inclined to refer all these cases to a band of swindlers operating in concert, and he even had the idea that it might all be the work of one man. But this was hardly more than an impression. Hull’s experience was the strangest and most mysterious of all these cases, and it was fraught with the greatest danger, but Wenk had a notion that therein lay the solution to all the rest. * * * * * After Wenk’s departure, Hull held a long argument with himself. The uncompromising yet thoroughly courteous way in which Wenk had effected an entrance had made an impression upon him. He guessed what the official desired, for he himself was often dissatisfied with his way of living, although his love of ease usually made him drive such thoughts away.