“Not enough, yet,” he reflected.  “And how—­how shall I close my grip?  How shall I master all this, absolutely and completely, till it be mine in truth?  Through light?  The mob can do with less, if I squeeze too hard!  Through food?  They can economize!  Transportation?  No, the traffic will bear only a certain load!  How, then?  What is it they all must have, or die, that I can control?  What universal need, vital to rich and poor alike?  To great and small?  What absolute necessity which shall make my rivals in the Game as much my vassals as the meanest slave in my steel mills?  What can it be?  For power I must have!  Like Caesar, who preferred to be first in the smallest village, rather than be second at Rome, I can and will have no competitor.  I must rule all, or the game is worthless!  But how?”

Almost as in answer to his mental question, a sudden gust of air swayed the curtain and brushed it against his face.  And, on the moment, inspiration struck him.

“What?” he exclaimed suddenly, his brows wrinkling, a strange and eager light burning in his hard eyes.  “Eh, what?  Can it—­could it be possible?  My God!  If so—­if it might be—­the world would be my toy, to play with as I like!

“If that could happen, kings and emperors would have to cringe and crawl to me, like my hordes of serfs all over this broad land.  Statesmen and diplomats, president and judges, lawmakers and captains of industry, all would fall into bondage; and for the first time in history one man would rule the earth, completely and absolutely—­and that man would be Isaac Flint!”

Staggered by the very immensity of the bold thought, so vast that for a moment he could not realize it in its entirety, the Billionaire fell to pacing the floor of his office.

His cigar now hung dead and unnoticed between his thinly cruel lips.  His hands were gripped behind his bent back, as he paced the priceless Shiraz rug, itself having cost the wage of a hundred workmen for a year’s hard, grinding toil.  And as he trod, up and down, up and down the rich apartments, a slow, grim smile curved his mouth.

“What editor could withstand me, then?” he was thinking.  “What clergyman could raise his voice against my rule?  Ah!  Their ‘high principles’ they prate of so eloquently, their crack-brained economics, their rebellions and their strikes—­the dogs!—­would soon bow down before that power!  Men have starved for stiff-necked opposition’s sake, and still may do so—­but with my hand at the throat of the world, with the world’s very life-breath in my grip, what then?  Submission, or—­ha! well, we shall see, we shall see!”