"I'd like to get my holdings back," said he. "I can't buy until it's down.
And I know none of my people would dare support it."
You will notice he did not say directly that he was not himself supporting
the market; he simply so answered me that I, not suspecting him, would
think he reassured me. There is another of those mysteries of conscience.
Had it been necessary, Langdon would have told me the lie flat and direct,
would have told it without a tremor of the voice or a blink of the eye,
would have lied to me as I have heard him, and almost all the big fellows,
lie under oath before courts and legislative committees; yet, so long as it
was possible, he would thus lie to me with lies that were not lies. As if
negative lies are not falser and more cowardly than positive lies, because
securer and more deceptive.
"Well, then, the price must break," said I, "It won't be many days before
the public begins to realize that there isn't anybody under Textile."
"No sharp break!" he said carelessly. "No panic!"
"I'll see to that," replied I, with not a shadow of a notion of the
subtlety behind his warning.
"I hope it will break soon," he then said, adding in his friendliest voice
with what I now know was malignant treachery: "You owe it to me to bring it
down.
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