"If he did, and it were to get out, there'd be a panic."
"Probably," replied I with a shrug. "That's no affair of mine. I'm not
responsible for the rotten conditions which these so-called financiers have
produced, and I shall not be disturbed by the crash which must come."
Schilling gave me a genuine look of mingled pity and admiration. "I suppose
you know what you're about," said he, "but I think you're making a
mistake."
"Thanks, Ned," said I--he had been my head clerk a few years before, and I
had got him the chance with Roebuck which he had improved so well. "I'm
going to have some fun. Can't live but once."
"I know some people," said he significantly, "who would go to _any_
lengths to get an enemy out of the way." He had lived close enough to
Roebuck to peer into the black shadows of that satanic mind, and dimly to
see the dread shapes that lurked there.
"I'm the safest man on Manhattan Island for the present," said I.
"You remember Woodrow? I've always believed that he was murdered, and that
the pistol they found beside him was a 'plant.'"
"You'd kill me yourself, if you got the orders, wouldn't you?" said I
good-humoredly.
"Not personally," replied he in the same spirit, yet serious, too, at
bottom.
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