Louis was silent for a time.
“You have managed admirably, Frank,” said he at last.
“Oh,” rejoined Frank, “Potts is very small game, financially. There is no skill needed in playing with him. He is such a clumsy bungler that he does whatever one wishes. There is not even excitement. Whatever I tell him to do he does. Now if I were anxious to crush the Rothschilds, it would be very different. There would then be a chance for skill.”
“You have had the chance.”
“I did not wish to ruin them,” said Frank. “Too many innocent people would have suffered. I only wished to alarm them. I rather think, from what I hear, that they were a little disturbed on that day when they had to pay four millions. Yet I could have crushed them if I had chosen, and I managed things so as to let them see this.”
“How?”
“I controlled other engagements of theirs, and on the same day I magnanimously wrote them a letter, saying that I would not press for payment, as their notes were as good to me as money. Had I pressed they would have gone down. Nothing could have saved them. But I did not wish that. The fact is they have locked up their means very much, and have been rather careless of late. They have learned a lesson now.”
Louis relapsed into his reflections, and Frank began to answer his letters.