"O.K.," I answered.

"No question about it, is there?"

"Not the slightest."

"Right again. When 26 Broadway[1] gives the secret order to the
Washington boss and he passes it out to the grafters, there will be a
quiet accumulation of the stock, won't there?"

"You've got that right, Bob."

"And the man who first knows when Washington begins to take on Sugar is
the man who should load up quick and rush it up to a high level. If he
does it quickly, the stockholders, who now have it, will get a juicy slice
of the ripening melon, a slice that otherwise would go to those greedy
hypocrites at Washington, who are always publicly proclaiming that they
are there to serve their fellow countrymen, but who never tire of
expressing themselves to their brokers as not being in politics for their
health."

"So far, good reasoning," I commented.

"Jim, the man who first knows when the Senators and Congressmen and
members of the Cabinet begin to buy Sugar, is the man who can kill four
birds with one stone: Win back a part of Judge Sands's stolen fortune;
increase his own pile against the first of January, when, if the little
Virginian lady is short a few hundred thousand of the necessary amount,
he could, if he found a way to induce her to accept it, supply the