He slaked his thirst again; his hand shook so that he nearly dropped the glass: 

“Which is preliminary,” he went on, “to saying to you that no matter what I said in access of rage, I never doubted that your encounter with—­Miss Quest—­was an accident.  I never doubted that your motive in coming to me was generous.  God knows why I said what I did say.  You struck me; and you were justified....  And that clears up that!”

“Dysart,” said the other, “you don’t have to tell me these things.”

“Would you rather not have heard them?”

Duane thought a moment.

“I would rather have heard them, I believe.”

“Then may I go on?”

“Is there anything more to explain between us?”

“No....  But I would like to say something—­in my own behalf.  Not that it matters to you—­or to any man, perhaps, except my father.  I would like to say it, Mallett.”

“Very well.”

“Then; I prefer that you should believe I am not a crook.  Not that it matters to you; but I prefer that you do not believe it....  You have read enough in the papers to know what I mean.  I’m telling you now what I have never uttered to any man; and I haven’t the slightest fear you will repeat it or use it in any manner to my undoing.  It is this: 

“The men with whom I was unwise enough to become partially identified are marked for destruction by the Clearing House Committee and by the Federal Government.  I know it; others know it.  Which means the ruthless elimination of anything doubtful which in future might possibly compromise the financial stability of this city.

“It is a brutal programme; the policy they are pursuing is bitterly unjust.  Innocent and guilty alike are going to suffer; I never in all my life consciously did a crooked thing in business; and yet I say to you now that these people are bent on my destruction; that they mean to force us to close the doors of the Algonquin; that they are planning the ruin of every corporation, every company, every bank, every enterprise with which I am connected, merely because they have decreed the financial death of Moebus and Klawber!”

He made a trembling gesture with clenched hand, and leaned farther forward: 

“Mallett!  There is not one man to-day in Wall Street who has not done, and who is not doing daily, the very things for which the government officials and the Clearing House authorities are attempting to get rid of me.  Their attacks on my securities will ultimately ruin me; but such attacks would ruin any financier, any bank in the United States, if continued long enough.

“Doesn’t anybody know that when the government conspires with the Clearing House officials any security can be kicked out of the market?  Don’t they know that when bank examiners class any securities as undesirable, and bank officials throw them out from the loans of such institutions, that they’re not worth the match struck to burn them into nothing?