If Henry Brierly had been blown up on the first Mississippi steamboat he

set foot on, as the chances were that he would be, he and Col. Sellers

never would have gone into the Columbus Navigation scheme, and probably

never into the East Tennessee Land scheme, and he would not now be

detained in New York from very important business operations on the

Pacific coast, for the sole purpose of giving evidence to convict of

murder the only woman he ever loved half as much as he loves himself.

If Mr. Bolton had said the little word "no" to Mr. Bigler, Alice Montague

might now be spending the winter in Philadelphia, and Philip also

(waiting to resume his mining operations in the spring); and Ruth would

not be an assistant in a Philadelphia hospital, taxing her strength with

arduous routine duties, day by day, in order to lighten a little the

burdens that weigh upon her unfortunate family.

It is altogether a bad business. An honest historian, who had progressed

thus far, and traced everything to such a condition of disaster and

suspension, might well be justified in ending his narrative and writing

--"after this the deluge." His only consolation would be in the reflection

that he was not responsible for either characters or events.

And the most annoying thought is that a little money, judiciously

applied, would relieve the burdens and anxieties of most of these people;

but affairs seem to be so arranged that money is most difficult to get

when people need it most.

A little of what Mr. Bolton has weakly given to unworthy people would now

536

The Gilded Age