"
A sullen growl rose from the gamblers. Robert Brownley glared down his
defiance.
"Let me show you the impossibility of preventing in the future anyone's
doing what I have done to you so many times during the past five years.
All the capital required to work my invention is nerve and desperation, or
nerve without desperation. It is well known to you that there are at all
times Exchange members who will commit any crime, barring perhaps murder,
to gain millions. Your members have from time to time shown nerve or
desperation enough to embezzle, raise certificates, give bogus checks,
counterfeit stocks and bonds, and this for gain of less than millions, and
when detection was probable. All these are criminal offences and their
detection is sure to bring disgrace and State prison. Yet members of this
Exchange desperate enough to take the chance, when confronted with loss of
fortune and open bankruptcy, have always been found with nerve enough to
attempt the crimes. I repeat that there are at all times Exchange members
who will commit any crime, barring perhaps murder, to gain millions. That
you may see that my successors will surely come from your midst from time
to time during the future existence of the Exchange, I will enumerate the
different classes of members who will follow in my footsteps:
"First, the 'In Gold We Trust' schemer who is of the 'System' type, but
who is outside the magic circle.
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