upon my ear smote the reproach, "Suicides because of you." And now out of the caldron sprang a mob of goblin dollar-signs compounded of blood-red snakes and copper bars, that danced a mad saraband around my chair to a weird chorus of, "But for you." Transfixed and aghast I stared at the train of awful forms. So real were they, they seemed almost to touch me as they swept onward. At last, with a convulsive effort, I threw off the spell, banished the phantasms of my frightened brain, and shook myself together with a: "You have work ahead and dreaming will not do it for you."
Back into my mind trooped the unanswerable, cold realities. There could be no doubt that the announcements in the morning papers would surprise those who had been led to expect an allotment of one share in twenty or thirty and had subscribed accordingly, and likewise those who had expected to get all, or at least one out of two. There might be murmurs of foul play and a general suspicion that trickery had been practised. Looking at the situation, I saw that upon me the chief blame must fall, and that it behooved me to think soundly and quickly over what had best be done to protect from the impending massacre those whom I had lured into the ambush. The smoke-wreaths had all gone out of my brain now, and as the known factors began to group themselves symmetrically before my mind I forced myself to face certain all-too-evident facts: Rogers and Stillman had plainly hoisted the black flag; they had broken all their promises to me and assuredly had no intention of carrying out to the public the pledges I had made on their behalf; they would handle this affair as they had others I knew about—only to extract the greatest number of dollars from it—and in the course of their operations I and my friends would probably be sent through the crusher with the rest. All this being true, I could do little by denunciation or exposure, for these men, caring nothing for the sufferings of others, would not fear the consequences of their own acts; my only hope was to meet them on their own ground and outplay them at their own game. Then and there I determined on my course—to compel them to undo