Those men held up before the world as models of Christian piety, who never missed a church service, whose names appeared in the papers as subscribers to charitable and mission funds; those Sunday-school teachers who would not have in their homes on the Sabbath day a newspaper, who would not take a glass of wine at dinner because of the example to their boys, and yet in their efforts to injure a business rival never hesitated to break the Ninth Commandment--not in words, oh no, too cautious for that, nothing that one could put his finger on; but the shrug of the shoulder, the significant raising of the eye-brows, the insinuation, the little hint to unsettle confidence. Bah! on such Christianity. And now those men were to train their guns on me. I had been twenty years in the trade and knew how others had fared. I grant, in many cases, it was tit-for-tat, the man injured had done his best to injured others. With _few exceptions_ the entire trade were "birds of a feather." We had not long to wait for the first shot and it fell very flat, the honors in that engagement all being with us. A broker had offered us a parcel for future delivery at a price he thought cheap and we accepted it. Later he called and said when he gave up our name as the buyer, the seller declined to confirm unless we would deposit with him, the seller, five thousand dollars as security. This concern knew we were perfectly responsible, but took this method of discrediting us, expecting that the broker would help the matter on by gossiping through the trade about it. We heard his story and then said to him, "Go back and say to your principal that we will not deposit with him one dollar; but if he will deposit with any trust company five thousand dollars, we will deposit twenty-five thousand against it." The seller declined to deposit anything and the sale was cancelled. The broker did gossip about it, but as his account of the incident was correct, it added to our prestige. Every now and then we would hear of something that one or another of our competitors had intimated to our discredit, but treating all such rumors with silent contempt, we kept up the even tenor of our way and closed the year with a profit of seventy-two thousand dollars. CHAPTER XXVII SAD HEARTS AT KNOLLWOOD The spring of 1890 brought with it two great sorrows. Following closely on the death of my beloved mother came the death at "Sunnyside" of Frank Slater. The latter was unexpected in its suddenness and a terrible shock to all his friends. I had become so deeply attached to Frank that he seemed like a dear brother and my grief was most profound. The day after his death, Mr. Pell, Mrs. Slater's father, asked me to represent the family in the settlement of the business affairs. There was no will and there were many complications.