The Deluge

I’m the biggest single operator in the country, I went on. And it’s my methods that give me success–because I know how to advertise–how to keep my name before the country, and how to make men say, whenever they hear it: ‘There’s a shrewd, honest fellow.’ That and the people it brings me, in flocks, are my stock in trade. Honesty’s a bluff with most of the big respectables; under cover of their respectability, of their ‘old and honored names, ’ of their social connections, of their church-going and that, they do all sorts of queer work.