"I explained to him what a Manton is.
"'And so you must have a Manton,' he said.
"'Did you ever want anything so bad that it kept you awake at night?' I asked him.
"He looked at me a long time without saying a word. He was one of the kings of Wall Street and I was only a five-foot-three girl, and I felt such a little cad when I saw his hands were trembling.
"'Jess,' he said, 'if you chose to do it you could half ruin me. You could shake some of the biggest houses in New York; you could drive the Forty-fourth National Bank into the hands of a receiver. You could start a financial earthquake.'
"And he looked at me again a long time.
"'The point is,' he began once more, 'are you strong enough to keep such a secret? Have you the character to do it—the grit—the determination?'
"'Just watch me!' I said.
"I thought it was a good sign that he smiled.
"'Just keep this to yourself for one month,' he said, 'and I'll send you the biggest, the reddest, the most dangerous, noisy, horse-frightening, man-destroying, high-stepping, high-smelling —what do you call it—Manton?—in the whole United States.'