u seem to be fairly successful, even at that," retorted Lafelle.
Then, too politic to draw his host into an acrimonious argument that
might end in straining their now cordial and mutually helpful
friendship, he observed, looking at his cigar: "May I ask what you pay
for these?--for only an inexhaustible bank reserve can warrant their
like."

He had struck the right chord, and Ames softened at once. "These," he
said, tenderly regarding the thick, black weed in his fingers, "are
grown exclusively for me on my own plantation in Colombia. They cost
me about one dollar and sixty-eight cents each, laid down at my door
in New York. I searched the world over before I found the only spot
where such tobacco could be grown."

"And this wine?" continued Lafelle, lifting his glass of sparkling
champagne.

"On a little hillside, scarcely an acre in extent, in Granada, Spain,"
replied Ames. "I have my own wine press and bottling plant there."

Lafelle could not conceal his admiration for this man of luxury. "And
does your exclusiveness extend also to your tea and coffee?" he
ventured, smiling.

"It does," said Ames. "I grow tea for my table in both China and
Ceylon. And I have exclusive coffee plantations in Java and Brazil.
But I'm now negotiating for one in Colombia, for I think that, without
doubt, the finest coffee in the world is grown there, although it
never gets beyond the coast line."

"_Fortuna non deo_," murmured the churchman; "you man of chance and
destiny!"

Ames laughed genially. "My friend," said he, "I have always insisted
that I possessed but a modicum of brains; but I am a gambler. My god
is chance. With ordinary judgment and horse-sense, I take risks that
no so-called sane man would consider. The curse of the world is
fear--the chief instrument that you employ to hold the masses to your
churchly system. I was born without it. I know that as long as a
business opponent has fear to contend with, I am his master. Fear is
at the root of every ailment of mind, body, or environment. I repeat,
I know not the meaning of the word. Hence my position in the business
world. Hence, also, my freedom from the limitations of superstition,
religious or otherwise. Do you get me?"

"Yes," replied Lafelle, drawing a long sigh, "in a sense I do. But you
greatly err, my friend, in deprecating your own powerful intellect. I
know of no brain but yours that could have put South Ohio Oil from one
hundred and fifty dollars up to o