" I must _use_ my strength. How could I better
use it than by fluttering these vultures on their roosts, and perhaps
bringing down a bird or two?
I decided, however, that it was better to wait until they had stopped
rattling their beaks and claws on my shell in futile attack. "Meanwhile," I
reasoned carefully, "I can be getting good and ready."
Their first new move, after my little talk with Langdon, was intended
as a mortal blow to my credit Melville requested me to withdraw mine and
Blacklock and Company's accounts from the National Industrial Bank; and the
fact that this huge and powerful institution had thus branded me was slyly
given to the financial reporters of the newspapers. Far and wide it was
published; and the public was expected to believe that this was one more
and drastic measure in the "campaign of the honorable men of finance to
clean the Augean Stables of Wall Street." My daily letter to investors next
morning led off with this paragraph--the first notice I had taken publicly
of their attacks on me:
"In the effort to discredit the only remaining uncontrolled source of
financial truth, the big bandits have ordered my accounts out of their
chief gambling-house.
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