| 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 |
| 1 | 61 | 122 | 182 | 243 |
|
adventurers, in the corner of some public park at home, may
be seen to perform the simple artifice of pea and thimble:
for their own profit, that is to say, and the discouragement
of public gambling. It was thus in his power - and, as he
was of grateful temper, it was among the things that he
desired - to put John in the way of growing rich; and thus,
without thought or industry, or so much as even understanding
the game at which he played, but by simply buying and selling
what he was told to buy and sell, that plaything of fortune
was presently at the head of between eleven and twelve
thousand pounds, or, as he reckoned it, of upward of sixty
thousand dollars.
How he had come to deserve this wealth, any more than how he
had formerly earned disgrace at home, was a problem beyond
the reach of his philosophy. It was true that he had been
industrious at the bank, but no more so than the cashier, who
had seven small children and was visibly sinking in decline.
Nor was the step which had determined his advance - a visit
to a dive with a month's wages in his pocket - an act of such
transcendent virtue, or even wisdom, as to seem to merit the
favour of the gods. From some sense of this, and of the
dizzy see-saw - heaven-high, hell-deep - on which men sit
clutching; or perhaps fearing that the sources of his fortune
might be insidiously traced to some root in the field of
petty cash; he stuck to his work, said not a word of his new
3
1
Page
Quick Jump
|