the State of Maine. 'What are you doing here?' he
asked. 'Speculating, said I, and seeing things.' He looked me up and
down. 'How are you getting on?' 'Well. I've made four dollars to-day,'
I answered. 'Out of this ticket?' I expect I grinned. He suddenly caught
me by the arm and whisked me inside the theatre--the first time I'd ever
been in a theatre in my life. I shall never forget it. He took me around
to his dressing-room, stuck me in a corner, and prodded me with his
forefinger. 'Look here,' he said, 'I guess I'll hire you to speculate
for me.' And that's how I came to get twenty-five dollars a month and
my living from a great American actor. When I got back to America--with
him--I had two hundred and fifty dollars in cash, and good clothes.
I started a peanut-stand, and sold papers and books, and became a
speculator. I heard two men talking one day at my stall about a railway
that was going to run through a certain village, and how they intended
to buy up the whole place. I had four hundred and fifty dollars then.
I went down to that village, and bought some lots myself. I made four
thousand dollars. Then I sold more books, and went on speculating."

He paused, blew his cigar-smoke slowly from him a moment; then turned
with a quick look to Miss Raglan, and smiled as at some incongruous
thing. He was wondering what would be the effect of his next words.

"When I was about twenty-two, and had ten thousand dollars, I fell
in love. She was a bright-faced, smart girl. Her mother kept a
boarding-house in New York; not an up-town boarding-house. She waited on
table. I suppose a man can be clever in making money, and knowing how
to handle men, and not know much about women. I thought she was worth
a good deal more to me than the ten thousand dollars. She didn't know
I had that money. A drummer--that's a commercial traveller--came along,
who had a salary of, maybe, a thousand dollars a year. She jilted me.
She made a mistake. That year I made twenty-five thousand dollars. I saw
her a couple of years ago. She was keeping a boarding-house too, and her
daughter was waiting on table. I'm sorry for that girl: it isn't any fun
being poor. I didn't take much interest in women after that. I put my
surplus affections into stocks and shares, and bulling and bearing...
Well, that is the way the thing has gone till now."

"What became of your father and your brother?" she asked in a neutral
tone.

"I don't know anything about my fa