Explore "The Leopard's Spots" by Fred M. White on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"It's like this," Stokes went on. "There are two or three people in London already, and more will follow presently, who are coming here to work one of the biggest rigs in shares which has ever been attempted. And, mind you, when I say this, I don't mean shares in bogus companies, and wild-cat rubbish, but shares in one of the biggest combinations of industrial trusts on the other side of the water. And behind this flutter are two Americans. They are not men of straw, but individuals who count their joint dollars by the hundred millions. You may wonder why they are in a thing like this, but there are certain men who never have enough. If they had all the money in the world, they would want more, not because they can enjoy it or spend it, but from sheer dollar hunger, and they are out now to rob the public in this country of ten million pounds. No more, and no less. I don't quite know how it is going to be worked yet. I don't even know the name of their men in London, because I have only the vaguest details, but that the thing is coming I am certain. Their presiding genius on the other side of the water is a man called Oakes--Silas Oakes."
Stagg whistled softly to himself.