farmer, and the miller Dearborn used to grind his grain regularly.
The two had been boys together, and had always remained fast
friends, almost brothers. Then, in the years just before the War,
had come the great movement westward, and Cressler had been one of
those to leave an "abandoned" New England farm behind him, and with
his family emigrate toward the Mississippi. He had come to Sangamon
County in Illinois. For a time he tried wheat-raising, until the
War, which skied the prices of all food-stuffs, had made him--for
those days--a rich man. Giving up farming, he came to live in
Chicago, bought a seat on the Board of Trade, and in a few years was
a millionaire. At the time of the Turco-Russian War he and two
Milwaukee men had succeeded in cornering all the visible supply of
spring wheat. At the end of the thirtieth day of the corner the
clique figured out its profits at close upon a million; a week later
it looked like a million and a half. Then the three lost their
heads; they held the corner just a fraction of a month too long, and
when the time came that the three were forced to take profits, they
found that they were unable to close out their immense holdings
without breaking the price. In two days wheat that they had held at
a dollar and ten cents collapsed to sixty. The two Milwaukee men
were ruined, and two-thirds of Cressler's immense fortune vanished
like a whiff of smoke.

But he had learned his lesson. Never since then had he speculated.
Though keeping his seat on the Board, he had confined himself to
commission trading, uninfluenced by fluctuations in the market. And
he was never wearied of protesting against the evil and the danger
of trading in margins. Speculation he abhorred as the small-pox,
believing it to be impossible to corner grain by any means or under
any circumstances. He was accustomed to say: "It can't be done;