What a "con man" high finance
got when Mowbray Langdon became active down town!
"That's true," he admitted, with a great air of frankness. "But the cry
that you're not a financier, but a bucket-shop man, might be fatal at the
Travelers. Of course, the sacrifice would be large for such a small object.
Still, you might have to make it--if you really want to get in."
"I'll think it over," said I. He thought I meant that I'd think over
dropping my power--thought I was as big a snob as he and his friends of the
Travelers, willing to make any sacrifice to be "in the push." But, while
Matthew Blacklock has the streak of snob in him that's natural to all
human beings and to most animals, he is not quite insane. No, the thing
I intended to think over was how to stay in the "bucket-shop" business,
but wash myself of its odium. Bucket-shop! What snobbery! Yet it's human
nature, too. The wholesale merchant looks down on the retailer, the big
retailer on the little; the burglar despises the pickpocket; the financier,
the small promoter; the man who works with his brain, the man who works
with his hands. A silly lot we are--silly to look down, sillier to feel
badly when we're looked down upon.
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