He turned to Vine.
"You hear ?" he said simply.
"Yes, I hear!" Norris Vine answered.
"Of course," John Drayton continued, "I do not know how you drifted into a conversation such as this, but in my last article in the _North American Review_, which Mr.Vine here will probably remember, I took the case of even a single man controlling one of the huge mercantile Trusts in this country, and tried to show what would happen to the small investors in a perfectly sound undertaking should a collapse happen to a holder of shares to this excessive extent.

It is a painful thing to have to confess, but there is no doubt that it exists.

We Americans are a great commercial people, and the dollar fever runs a little too hotly in our blood.

We stretch out our hands too far.

Vine, I know, agrees with me." "Yes," Vine answered, "I agree with you!" He rose to his feet.