“I love to meet this charming belief in one’s fellow man these cynical times, but I thought you said you lost money with him. Was he your partner?”
“No. The losing of the money was through no fault of his. He had nothing to do with my speculation. We were merely in the same boat, that’s all. Nipped by the same pair of pinchers.”
“So that was what disgusted you with America. I am disappointed with your story. Wasn’t there a woman concerned at all?”
“No.”
“Where does our friend Colonel Beck come in?”
“Beck comes in owing to the fact that he persuaded me to undertake the speculation by which I lost several hundred thousand. He gave me false information, and I believe he knew it to be false.”
“Any proof?”
“No. Circumstantial evidence, that’s all. I believed him to be my friend, and in fact acted the tenderfoot to perfection. I was even green enough to go to him when the crisis came, believing that a loan of twenty thousand or thereabout would save me, but he refused to let me have the money, although I offered this same stock I am cabling about as security.”
“Perhaps he didn’t have the money, like the man who neglected to buy Chicago.”
“He said his ready money had been swept away by the panic, which I doubt. I have never seen him since, and somehow have no particular desire to meet him now.”