"So is the internal economy of a bug mysterious."
"And your talk about the Lion eating the man and the International Cribbage Board--"
"Kidder, my rhetorical eccentricities are of no consequence. Suppose you call it a harmless desire to give to myself the importance of the inexplicable, or even an intent to confuse impressions by making the mind of the broker dwell more on the mysteriousness of the customer than on the possible meaning of that customer's trading. Do you wish me to tell you that I have a system for beating the ticker game? Because I sha'n't! But that I go about my business scientifically you yourself have seen. At least you are witness that I have won."
"There isn't a second if you won't answer the first," said Kidder, with the forced amiability of the foiled.
"I have answered it. What you really wish is a detective story. Suppose we imagine. The only real people are those that live in our minds. Now let us wonder what happened to Garrettson and why he will not tell. Here is an incident that precipitated a slump which had the semblance of a panic--short-lived though it was--that caused mental anguish to his friends, relatives, and associates; and yet that great genius of finance, Wall Street's demigod, says nothing."
"We know he lies. That makes it more serious. Why does he lie? What compels so powerful and courageous a man as the great Garrettson to lie?"
"Do you mean fear of a petticoat scandal?"
"No; because Garrettson does not fear that. Being highly intelligent, he protects himself against all possibility of scandal. No. It is something else. It's fear!"
"No. He doesn't fear men. But he might fear--" He paused.
Kidder aimed what he fondly hoped was a piercing glance at Mr. Robison. He discovered nothing. Mr. Robison had a far-away look in his philosophical eyes.
"It's too much for me," finally confessed Kidder, hoping that the frankness of his admission might induce Mr. Robison to speak on.
"You have what I may call the usual type of mind. You look at usual things in the usual way. And yet the application of well-known principles to well-known people seems to benumb your usual mind most unusually. Now what do you gather from the Garrettson episode?"
"Nothing, unless it is that you made a lot of money by what seems to be a most unusual succession of coincidences."
