“In the melee, I feigned being shot, and was able to crawl under the cart unobserved, where I waited until the disturbances were over, and then escaped unnoticed.”
“That will do. Good-bye. I wish you success.”
“Yes, but only for the sake of your own banking account, you old miser,” muttered Felix to himself as the door closed behind him and he was once again in the street.
IV.
Gregory Grindall was unhappy. Not that that was anything unusual with him because he was never a happy individual at the best of times. He had money certainly—abundance of it, in fact—but what pleasure could he derive from it when he was in constant danger of losing it? He had hosts of friends, too, amongst the higher, as well as the lower classes of society, but what did all their friendship benefit him when he mistrusted everyone of them and believed that most of them mistrusted him? True, he had the press extolling his innumerable virtues (real or imaginary) and the principal daily organ, of which he was part proprietor, lauded him to the skies; but as others in his own position understood the worth of the eulogies lavished upon him by the press, and as the pesky rabble were beginning to mistrust everything and everyone recommended by the “bourgeoisie press,” as they termed it, and as moreover the other papers had now and then a mercenary interest in supporting his rivals, what good, after all, would the press be to him in time of adversity, and with all the anxieties it brought upon him did it assist in his happiness? Certainly not. There is no happiness in life, where one is in constant anxiety. Although money rendered miserable all those poor wretches without money, there was no concealing the fact that it didn’t succeed very well either in bringing happiness to those who had lots of it. At least, so Grindall thought. He believed himself to be worth considerably over a million pounds, but then his liabilities were something enormous. As to his assets, he could not possibly estimate them, because half his investments appeared to be unsound now that the terrible depression was settling on everything—mines were failing, banks bursting, creditors failing without paying a shilling in the pound; and worse than all, he could not immediately convert his assets into cash as he desired to do, and the banks were so panic-stricken they feared to make advances to anyone except upon the most ruinous terms.
Gregory Grindall had lived a life full of varied business experience. Starting humbly, as many successful men have done before him, he had terrible odds to fight against. Often would he look back at the happy time when as a little errand boy he honestly worked for the few shillings which every week he took home to his anxious parents. Then he showed such intelligence and diligence that he got a situation as a clerk in a position of trust; but owing to the dishonesty of a fellow-worker, he was dismissed in disgrace on a false charge of embezzlement. Then he skipped
