have heard the term, no doubt, with regard to stocks; it is a
fascinating game to play with banks, because the more of them you
get, the more prominent you become in the newspapers, and the more
the public trusts you."

And the General went on to tell of some of the cases of which he
knew. There was Stewart, the young Lochinvar out of the West. He had
tried to buy the Trust Company of the Republic long ago, and so the
General knew him and his methods. He had fought the Copper Trust to
a standstill in Montana; the Trust had bought up the Legislature and
both political machines, but Cummings had appealed to the public in
a series of sensational campaigns, and had got his judges into
office, and in the end the Trust had been forced to buy him out. And
now he had come to New York to play this new game of bank-gambling,
which paid even quicker profits than buying courts.--And then there
was Holt, a sporting character, a vulgar man-about-town, who was
identified with everything that was low and vile in the city; he,
too, had turned his millions into banks.--And there was Cummings,
the Ice King, who for years had financed the political machine in
the city, and, by securing a monopoly of the docking-privileges, had
forced all his rivals to the wall. He had set out to monopolise the
coastwise steamship trade of the country, and had bought line after
line of vessels by this same device of "pyramiding"; and now,
finding that he needed still more money to buy out his rivals, he
had purchased or started a dozen or so of trust companies and banks.

"Anyone ought to realise that such things cannot go on
indefinitely," said the General. "I know that the big men realise
it. I was at a directors' meeting the other day, and I heard
Waterman remark that it would have to be ended very soon. Anyone who