It is truth—of the kind that carries its own bell and candle. Within the narrative itself are the reagents required to test and prove its genuineness. Were man endowed with the propensity of a Münchhausen, the cunning of a Machiavelli, the imagination of Scheherezade, the ability of a Shakespeare, and the hellishness of his Satanic Majesty, he could not play upon 400,000 words, or one-quarter that number, and make the play peal truth for a single hour to the audience who will read this book, or to one-thousandth part the audience that has already read it in Everybody's Magazine.
Such as the story is, it is before you. If in its perusal you fathom my intentions, my hopes, my desires, I shall have been repaid for the pain its writing has brought me. At least you will find the history of a colossal business affair involving millions of dollars and manned by the financial leaders of the moment. It is a fair representation of financial methods and commercial morals as they exist in America at the beginning of the twentieth century. As a contemporary document the narrative should have value; as history it is not, I believe, without interest. As a message it has had its influence. Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that no man in his own generation has seen such a crop come forth from seed of his own sowing since the long bygone days when the wandering king planted dragons' teeth on the Phœnician plain and raised up an army of warriors.
