Page:Melville Davisson Post--The Man of Last Resort.djvu/185

Rh business without being subject to speculative comment.

“These suggestions of Hirst I followed to the letter, and they resulted as he anticipated. I had now great confidence in the ability of this remarkable man. The details of his plans were as accurate as the pieces of a machine, and they seemed never capable of failure.”

The coal operator paused and rested his hands on the arms of his chair.

“Even now,” he said, “I consider Brown Hirst to have been the ablest man I ever saw.”

Randolph Mason was silent. His face indicated rather more of weariness than of interest. Perhaps the story in its substance was very old to him.

“On the first day of September, 1893, I joined Brown Hirst in Philadelphia, and here he unfolded a number of gigantic plans, among others one for defrauding life insurance companies, which we finally decided to attempt. I do not now recall that I felt any real repugnance to the moral obliquity of these ventures. The mastermind of Hirst seemed to sweep out any moral consideration, by simply ignoring it