It was the work of the faro-bank man, whose sleight of hand deceived the
man that carried the gun.
All the old humanity and good-fellowship of the trader, the man who
exchanged, as it was in the olden days of the world and continued in
greater or less degree till the present generation--all that was gone.
It was held in contempt. It had prevailed when men were open robbers and
filibusters and warriors, giving their lives, if need be, to get what
they wanted, making force their god. It had triumphed over the violence
and robbery of the open road until the dying years of one century and the
young years of a new century. Then the day of the trickster came--and
men laughed at the idea of fair exchange and strove to give an illusive
value for a thing of real value--the remorseless sleight of hand which
the law could not reach. The desire to get profit by honest toiling was
dying down to ashes.
Against such men had Ingolby worked--the tricksters, the manipulators.
At the basis of his schemes was organization and the economy which
concentrated and conserved energy begets, together with its profit.
He had been the enemy of waste, the apostle of frugality and thrift;
and it was that which had enabled him, in his short career, to win the
confidence of the big men behind him in Montreal, to make good every
step of the way.
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