I endeavoured to console him. "After all," I said,
"though Golcondas have suffered a temporary loss, it's a comfort
to think that you should have stood so firm, and not only stemmed
the tide, but also prevented yourself from losing anything at all
of your own through panic. I'm sorry, of course, for the widows
and orphans; but if Colonel Clay has rigged the market, at least
it isn't YOU who lose by it this time."
Charles withered me with a fierce scowl of undisguised contempt.
"Wentworth," he said once more, "you are a fool!" Then he relapsed
into silence.
"But you declined to sell out," I said.
He gazed at me fixedly. "Is it likely," he asked at last, "I would
tell _you_ if I meant to sell out? or that I'd sell out openly through
Finglemore, my usual broker? Why, all the world would have known,
and Golcondas would have been finished. As it is, I don't desire to
tell an ass like you exactly how much I've lost. But I _did_ sell out,
and some unknown operator bought in at once, and closed for ready
money, and has sold again this morning; and after all that has
happened, it will be impossible to track him. He didn't wait for the
account: he settled up instantly. And he sold in like manner. I know
now what has been done, and how cleverly it has all been disguised
and covered; but the most I'm going to tell you to-day is just
this--it's by far the biggest haul Colonel Clay has made out of me.
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