I soon discovered that it was the scent of my
stock-tip generosity, wafted to him by Sammy, that had put him hot upon my
trail. I hadn't gone far into his affairs before I learned that he had been
speculating, mortgaging, kiting notes, doing what he called, and thought,
"business" on a large scale. He regarded business as beneath the dignity
and the intellect of a "gentleman"--how my gorge does rise at that word! So
he put his great mind on it only for a few hours now and then; he reserved
the rest of his time for what he regarded as the proper concerns of a
gentleman--attending to social "duties," reading pretentious books, looking
at the pictures and listening to the music decreed fashionable.
They charge that I put him "in a hole." In fact, I found him at the bottom
of a deep pit he had dug for himself; and when he first met me he was,
without having the sense to realize it, just about to go smash, with not a
penny for his old age. As soon as I had got this fact clear of the tangle,
I showed it to him.
"My God, what is to become of _me_?" he said, That was his only
thought--not, what is to become of my wife and daughter; but, what is to
become of "_me_!" I do not blame him for this.
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