of his cutlass at the small of your back and you're walking the plank at his order. Rogers is wonderful. He is one of the most prolific human creatures I have ever met; prolific in thought, in devices—and I've been at the game a long time now and ought to know.
"Don't think me egotistical, but I can't help looking under the surface and going to the bottom of things. So I learn more about men in Wall Street and what they are at than most. This is my thirty-fourth year of sixteen and seventeen hours a day and three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, and I have seen them all come and go. I am with the third generation of my time now. In such matters I feel somehow that I'm about three hundred years old.
"Men like Rogers are all very good fellows. They are genial and tolerant in their judgment of others. Yes, they are mighty good fellows, until you turn them around and look at their other side. Rogers is lovable enough until he touches the other button. Then he goes with perfect ruthlessness for what he wants. And yet, though you are his victim, you can't bring yourself to hate him. After he has thrown you down and taken all you have and you turn yourself over and find the dark lantern has disappeared, and you hear him going up the lane, you pick yourself out of the gutter and admire the skill with which he did the job. If you could stand it, you would almost whistle to have him come back and do it over."
"It is easy to see," I said, "by what you write of Mr. Rogers in your magazine story, that you were fond of him and gave him the highest rank for ability, but just the same you said you had to go on the stand in the gas suit