Yet those who make the most pretensions in this topsy-turvy of a world regard it as a disgrace to have been obscure and ignorant, and pride themselves upon their persistence in their own kind of obscurity and ignorance! No wonder the few strong men do about as they please with such a race of nincompoopery. If they didn't grow old and tired, what would they not do? All this time I was giving myself--or thought I was giving myself--chiefly to my business, as usual. I know now that the new interests had in fact crowded the things down town far into the background, had impaired my judgment, had suspended my common sense; but I had no inkling of this then, The most important matter that was occupying me down town was pushing Textile up toward par. Langdon's doubts, little though they influenced me, still made enough of an impression to cause me to test the market. I sold for him at ninety, as he had directed; I sold in quantity every day. But no matter how much I unloaded, the price showed no tendency to break. “This,” said I to myself, “is a testimonial to the skill with which I prepared for my bull campaign.” And that seemed to me--all unsuspicious as I then was--a sufficient explanation of the steadiness of the stock which I had worked to establish in the public confidence. I felt that, if my matrimonial plans should turn out as I confidently expected, I should need a much larger fortune than I had--for I was determined that my wife should have an establishment second to none. Accordingly, I enlarged my original plan. I had intended to keep close to Langdon in that plunge; I believed I controlled the market, but I 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 simply acting on the general principle that surprise and treachery are part of the code of high finance, I had prepared to guard, first, against being taken in the rear by a secret change of plan on Langdon's part, and second, against being involved and overwhelmed by a sudden secret attack on him from some associate of his who might think he had laid himself open to successful raiding. The market is especially dangerous toward Christmas and in the spring--toward Christmas the big fellows often juggle the stocks to get the money for their big Christmas gifts and alms; toward spring the motive is, of course, the extra summer expenses of their families and the commencement gifts to colleges. It was now late in the spring.