I said I knew some of the backers. They were pretty
big men, too. Then he informed me that he himself was deeply interested.
"I was knocked off my feet by that, you can imagine. And, to be frank,
Captain, if I had known it at first I'm not sure that I, personally,
would have taken the matter up. Yet I might; I can't tell. But now that
I had done it and discovered what I had, I couldn't give it up. I must
go on and learn more. And I knew enough already to be certain that the
more I learned the more I should write and have published. It was one of
those things which had to be made public--if a fellow had a conscience
about him and a pride in the decency of his profession.
"All this was going through my head as I sat there in his private
office. And he took my surprise and hesitation as symptoms of wavering
and went at me, hard. Of course I knew, he said, that the operation was
absolutely within the law. I did, but that didn't make it more honest or
moral or just. He went on to say that in large financial deals of this
nature petty scruples must be lost sight of. Good of the business,
rights of stockholders, all that sort of stuff; he rang the changes. All
the papers cared for was sensation; to imperil the fortune of widows and
orphans whose savings were invested in the South Shore Stock, for the
sake of sensation, was a crime.
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