No; bandit is too grand a word
to apply to this game of 'high finance.' It's really on the level with the
game of the fellow that waits for a dark night, slips into the barn-yard,
poisons the watch-dog, bores an auger-hole in the granary, and takes to his
heels at a suspicious sound."
With his first full stop, I said: "I understand perfectly, Langdon. But I
haven't the slightest interest in crooked enterprises now. I'm clear out
of all you fellows' stocks. I've reinvested my property so that not even a
panic would trouble me."
"That's good," he drawled. I saw he did not believe me--which was natural,
as he knew nothing of my arrangement with Galloway and assumed I was
laboring in heavy weather, with a bad cargo of Coal stocks and contracts.
"Come to lunch with me. I've got some interesting things to tell you about
my trip."
A few months before, I should have accepted with alacrity. But I had lost
interest in him. He had not changed; if anything, he was more dazzling than
ever in the ways that had once dazzled me. It was I that had changed--my
ideals, my point of view. I had no desire to feed my new-sprung contempt by
watching him pump in vain for information to be used in his secret campaign
against me.
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