I say, I had intended to be cautious. I abandoned caution and rushed in boldly, feeling that the market was, in general, safe and that Textile was under my control--and that I was one of the kings of high finance, with my lucky star in the zenith. I decided to continue my bull campaign on my own account for two weeks after I had unloaded for Langdon, to continue it until the stock was at par. I had no difficulty in pushing it to ninety-seven, and I was not alarmed when I found myself loaded up with it, quoted at ninety-eight for the preferred and thirty for the common. I assumed that I was practically its only supporter and that it would slowly settle back as I slowly withdrew my support. To my surprise, the stock did not yield immediately under my efforts to depress it. I sold more heavily; Textile continued to show a tendency to rise. I sold still more heavily; it broke a point or two, then steadied and rose again. Instead of sending out along my secret lines for inside information, as I should have done, and would have done had I not been in a state of hypnotized judgment--I went to Langdon! I who had been studying those scoundrels for twenty-odd years, and dealing directly with and for them for ten years! He wasn't at his office; they told me there that they didn't know whether he was at his town house or at his place in the country--“probably in the country,” said his down-town secretary, with elaborate carelessness. “He wouldn't be likely to stay away from the office or not to send for me, if he were in town, would he?” It takes an uncommon good liar to lie to me when I'm on the alert. As I was determined to see Langdon, I was in so far on the alert. And I felt the fellow was lying. “That's reasonable,” said I. “Call me up, if you hear from him. I want to see him--important, but not immediate.” And I went away, having left the impression that I would make no further effort. Incredible though it may seem, especially to those who know how careful I am to guard every point and to see in every friend a possible foe, I still did not suspect that smooth, that profound scoundrel. I do not use these epithets with heat. I flatter myself I am a connoisseur of finesse and can look even at my own affairs with judicial impartiality. And Langdon was, and is now, such a past master of finesse that he compels the admiration even of his victims. He's like one of those fabled Damascus blades. When he takes a leg off, the victim forgets to suffer in his amazement at the cleanness of the wound, in his incredulity that the leg is no longer part of him. “Langdon,” said I to myself, “is a sly dog. No doubt he's busy about some woman, and has covered his tracks.” Yet I ought, in the circumstances, instantly to have suspected that I was the person he was dodging.