The General had become conscious that he was not quite the man that he
had been. His mind was darkened and dulled by crime. He was haunted by
vague fears and apprehensions. With his frequent and appalling losses of
money, he had lost a measure of his faith in himself. His coolness of
calculation had been diminished; he listened with readier credulity to
rumors, and yielded more easily to the personal influences around him.
Even the steady prosperity which attended his regular business became a
factor in his growing incapacity for the affairs of the street. His
reliance on his permanent sources of income made him more reckless in
his speculations.
His grand scheme for "gently" and "tenderly" unloading his Crooked
Valley stock upon the hands of his trusting dupes along the line,
worked, however, to perfection. It only required rascality, pure and
simple, under the existing conditions, to accomplish this scheme, and he
found in the results nothing left to be desired. They furnished him with
a capital of ready money, but his old acquaintances discovered the foul
trick he had played, and gave him a wide berth. No more gigantic
combinations were possible to him, save with swindlers like himself, who
would not hesitate to sacrifice him as readily and as mercilessly as he
had sacrificed his rural victims.
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