In my office sat Walter, looking dejected, but far from the sorry figure I had expected to see. He followed me into my inside room and stood near my desk, his eyes down.
“Well, sir!” said I, sternly. In fact, I was not the least bit angry; my complete victory, and the recovery of my control over my family had put me in a serene frame of mind. “Your mother has told me everything,” I added, not wishing him to irritate me with any lies.
“But she doesn’t know everything,” said he, “I risked half of Natalie’s money—and—I—her father loaned me two hundred thousand.”
I frowned still more heavily to conceal the satisfaction this news gave me. “Did Bradish know what you were going to do with the money?” I demanded.
“Yes,” replied Walter, in a voice that must have come out of a desert-dry throat. “He—he went twenty thousand shares short on his own account.”
This was better and better. For the first time in years I felt like laughing aloud. “You didn’t by any chance draw Kirkby in?” I asked, with a pretence of sarcasm.
Walter shook his head. “No—Kirkby doesn’t care about stocks.”
That gave me a chance to laugh. But it wasn’t a kind of laughter that Walter found contagious. If anything, he got a few shades whiter. “I’ve known you were in this for two months and a half,” said I. “I wished to give you an object-lesson that would make you appreciate why Kirkby doesn’t care about stocks. I’ve known every move you made—we who rule down here always know about the small people, about the idiots like you. We are rarely able to fool each other; what chance have you and your kind got? I told you all this, and now I’ve taught it to you. I’ve not decided on your punishment yet. But one thing I can tell you: if you ever go into the market again, you will—join your ex-brother!”
He was silent for a moment, then began: “Mother——”
“I know about her,” I interrupted. “I wish to hear nothing from you.”