“Give my win to me in a single bill,” I said to the banker, “and blow yourself off with the change.” Joe walked down the street with me--for companionship and a little air before turning in, he said, but I imagine a desire to keep his eye on his treasure a while longer had something to do with his taking that early morning stroll. We passed several of those forlorn figures that hurry through the slowly-awakening streets to bed or to work. Finally, there came by an old, old woman--a scrubwoman, I guess, on her way home from cleaning some office building. Beside her was a thin little boy, hopping along on a crutch. I stopped them. “Hold out your hand,” said I to the boy, and he did. I laid the five hundred-dollar bill in it. “Now, shut your fingers tight over that,” said I, “and don't open them till you get home. Then tell your mother to do what she likes with it.” And we left them gaping after us, speechless before this fairy story come true. “You must be looking hard for luck to-day,” said Joe, who understood this transaction where another might have thought it a showy and not very wise charity. “They'll stop in at the church and pray for you, and burn a candle.” “I hope so,” said I, “for God knows I need it.” XX. A BREATHING SPELL. Langdon, after several years of effort, had got recognition for Textile in London, but that was about all. He hadn't succeeded in unloading any great amount of it on the English. So it was rather because I neglected nothing than because I was hopeful of results that I had made a point of telegraphing to London news of my proposed suit. The result was a little trading in Textiles over there and a slight decline in the price. This fact was telegraphed to all the financial centers on this side of the water, and reinforced the impression my lawyers' announcement and my own “bear” letter were making. Still, this was nothing, or next to it. What could I hope to avail against Langdon's agents with almost unlimited capital, putting their whole energy under the stock to raise it? In the same newspapers that published my bear attack, in the same columns and under the same head-lines, were official denials from the Textile Trust and the figures of enormous increase of business as proof positive that the denials were honest. If the public had not been burned so many times by “industrials,” if it had not learned by bitter experience that practically none of the leaders of finance and industry were above lying to make or save a few dollars, if Textiles had not been manipulated so often, first by Dumont and since his death by his brother-in-law and successor, this suave and cynical Langdon, my desperate attack would have been without effect. As it was--