Duane, painfully impressed, waited.

And after a moment Dysart spoke again: "They mean my ruin.

There is a bank examiner at work--this very moment while we're sitting here--on the Collect Pond Bank--which is mine.

The Federal inquisitors went through it once; now a new one is back again.
They found nothing with which to file an adverse report the first time.
Why did they come back?
"And I'll tell you another thing, Mallett, which may seem a slight reason for my sullenness and quick temper; they've had secret-service men following me ever since I returned from Roya-Neh.

They are into everything that I've ever been connected with; there is no institution, no security in which I am interested, that they have not investigated.
"And I tell you also, incredible as it may sound, that there is no security in which I am interested which is not now being attacked by government officials, and which, as a result of such attacks, is not depreciating daily.