e remembers a running creek at the back of
his father's farm where he used to lie at full length
upon the grass and drink his fill. Champagne, he says,
never tasted like that. I have suggested that he should
lie on his stomach on the floor of the club and drink a
saucerful of soda water. But he won't.

I know well that my friend Spugg would be glad to be rid
of his wealth altogether, if such a thing were possible.
Till I understood about these things, I always imagined
that wealth could be given away. It appears that it
cannot. It is a burden that one must carry. Wealth, if
one has enough of it, becomes a form of social service.
One regards it as a means of doing good to the world, of
helping to brighten the lives of others--in a word, a
solemn trust. Spugg has often talked with me so long and
so late on this topic--the duty of brightening the lives
of others--that the waiter who held blue flames for his
cigarettes fell asleep against a door post, and the
chauffeur outside froze to the seat of his motor.

Spugg's wealth, I say, he regards as a solemn trust. I
have often asked him why he didn't give it, for example,
to a college. But he tells me that unfortunately he is
not a college man. I have called his attention to the
need of further pensions for college professors; after
all that Mr. Carnegie and others have done, there are
still thousands and thousands of old professors of
thirty-five and even forty, working away day after day
and getting nothing but what they earn themselves, and
with no provision beyond the age of eighty-five. But Mr.
Spugg says that these men are the nation's heroes. Their
work is its own reward.

But, after all, Mr. Spugg's troubles--for he is a single
man with no ties--are in a sense selfish. It is perhaps
in the homes, or more properly in the residences, of the
rich that the great silent tragedies are being enacted
every day--tragedies of which the fortunate poor know
and can know nothing.

I saw such a case only a few nights ago at the house of
the Ashcroft-Fowlers, where I was dining. As we went in
to dinner, Mrs. Ashcroft-Fowler said in a quiet aside to
her husband, "Has Meadows spoken?" He shook his head
rather gloomily and answered, "No, he has said nothing
yet." I saw them exchange a glance of quiet sympathy and
mutual help, like people in trouble, who love one another.

They were old friends and my heart beat for them. All
through the dinner as Meadows--he was their butle