If I had had my
wits about me, I could have made far better terms." Why hadn't I my wits
about me? "Anita" was my instant answer to my own question. "Anita again.
I had a bad attack of family man's panic." And thus it came about that I
went back to my own office, feeling as if I had suffered a severe defeat,
instead of jubilant over my narrow escape.
Joe followed me into my den. "What luck?" asked he, in the tone of a mother
waylaying the doctor as he issues from the sick-room.
"Luck?" said I, gazing blankly at him.
"You've seen the latest quotation, haven't you?" In his nervousness his
temper was on a fine edge,
"No," replied I indifferently. I sat down at my desk and began to busy
myself. Then I added: "We're out of the Coal combine. I've transferred our
holdings. Look after these things, please." And I gave him the checks,
notes and memoranda of agreement.
"Galloway!" he exclaimed. And then his eye fell on the totals of the stock
I had been carrying. "Good God, Matt!" he gasped. "Ruined!"
And he sat down, and buried his face and cried like a child--it was then
that I measured the full depth of the chasm I had escaped. I made no such
exhibition of myself, but when I tried to relight my cigar my hand trembled
so that the flame scorched my lips.
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