The girl opened her eyes wide. "That's nonsense!" she exclaimed. "How can anyone buy a trust company without a dollar!" Ilingsworth's smile was full of meaning. "It's the kind of nonsense your own father has been dealing in for years," he returned, placing his hand upon her arm. "They buy the trust company, and put up its own stock as security for the purchase price--then they go ahead. Jones runs his factory; Smith buys and sells real estate; Robinson bucks the game upon the Street...." "And without money?" reiterated the girl, still incredulous. "_With money_," corrected Ilingsworth, his voice even and unexcited now, "with the money of Mike and Bridget and Carl and Sophy, depositors who put their hard-earned dollars in to get a few cents interest--two per cent., to be exact--while Jones and his crowd are making two hundred per cent. on the money. But Jones isn't through--he wants more. So he and his crowd buy another trust company, put up the stock of the first as collateral, or any way you please,--there's no end to the game,--and this crowd go on with their speculation, using the people's money, and gathering in the cream. They never stop; and just so long as everything is prosperous, so long are the trust companies sound. Then, in the fulness of time, comes the panic,"--and with his clenched hands he smote the top of the desk,--"smash!" The girl showed that she had been following him closely when she maintained: "Still, that's only your point of view. At any rate, it was a venture, and when the panic came--everybody goes under. These people don't create the panic." Ilingsworth gritted his teeth. "I haven't finished!" he cried. "Out of all this crowd of Jones, Smith and Robinson, there is always one man who understands the game. He owns seventeen trust companies; he's milked them dry. He's been _waiting_ for a panic; the panic comes. Now he throws up his hands, tells the people he's been a fool with the rest, and shows up worthless stock--waste-paper by the ton that he has bought for just nothing a pound. But he's got _all_ that the people haven't got, and he's salted it away. And that man's name is Peter V. Wilkinson." Leslie's face paled. "Mr. Ilingsworth," she cried sharply, "do you really believe all that you've been telling me?" Ilingsworth stared her wearily in the face. "The Norahs and the Ludwigs, perhaps, don't mind losing their few dollars," he replied vaguely; "but I want to tell you that when I--when Elinor and I lose fifteen thousand a year--and how many years there are ahead of us--it's killing! Killing! And you ask do I believe all that I've been telling you?" He roused himself to sudden energy. "Believe? Why, heavens and earth, I know, I know...." There was a pause in which Ilingsworth's eyes sought the floor. Presently he looked up and held out his hand.