In the midsummer dullness and holiday stagnation the impending operation in the Catskills was the only one that promised anything whatever.

He became more fully satisfied that Arnault's firm was prospering.

They had been persistent "bears" on a market that had long been declining, and had reaped a golden harvest from the miseries of others.

On the other hand, he learned that Henry Muir was barely holding his own, and that he had strained his credit dangerously to do this.

He knew about the enterprise which had absorbed the banker's capital, and while he believed it would respond promptly to the returning flow of the financial tide, it now seemed stranded among more hopeless ventures.
There was no escaping the conviction that Muir was in a perilous position, and that a little thing might push him over the brink.
Therefore, he had returned fully beat upon using all his influence in behalf of Arnault, and was spurred to this effort by the fact that his finances, but not his expenses, were running low.