Later came an interview with old Ellersly.
"Not at all mysterious," he had said to the reporters. "Mr. Blacklock found
he would have to go abroad on business soon--he didn't know just when. On
the spur of the moment they decided to marry." A good enough story, and
I confirmed it when I admitted the reporters. I read their estimates of
my fortune and of Anita's with rather bitter amusement--she whose father
was living from hand to mouth; I who could not have emerged from a forced
settlement with enough to enable me to keep a trap. Still, when one is
rich, the reputation of being rich is heavily expensive; but when one is
poor the reputation of being rich can be made a wealth-giving asset.
Even as I was reading these fables of my millions, there lay on the desk
before me a statement of the exact posture of my affairs--a memorandum made
by myself for my own eyes, and to be burned as soon as I mastered it. On
the face of the figures the balance against me was appalling. My chief
asset, indeed my only asset that measured up toward my debts, was my Coal
stocks, those bought and those contracted for; and, while their par value
far exceeded my liabilities, they had to appear in my memorandum at their
actual market value on that day.
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