been shorn. And you don't need to expect it from your friends
of the Heights. They believe only in success. The moment you're
fleeced, they fling you aside. They fatten off the carcasses of
others--yours and mine and their own brothers. Friendship does not
enter into the game. They will eat your bread and salt to-night, and
dance on your financial corpse to-morrow. The only respect they have is
for money, and clothes, and show; and the more money, and the more show
the greater their deference--while they last--and the farther the fall
when they fail. The women are as bad as the men, in a smaller way. They
will blacken one another's reputation with an ease and zest that is
simply appalling, and laugh in your face while doing it. I'm speaking
generally, there are exceptions, of course, but they only prove the
rule. Yet, what can you expect, where aristocracy is based on one's
bank account, and the ability to keep the other fellows from laying
violent hands on it. It reminds one of the Robbers of the Rhine! Steal
everything within reach and give up nothing. Oh! it is a fine system of
living!--Your pardon! I forgot myself."

"It is good to have you forget yourself occasionally," said
Croyden--"especially, when your views chime with mine--recently
acquired, I admit. I began to see it about a month ago, when I slowed
down on expenditures. I thought I could notice an answering chill in
the grill-room."

"Like enough. You must spend to get on. They have no use for one who
doesn't. You have committed the unpardonable sin: had a fortune and
lost it. And they never forgive--unless you make another fortune; then
they will welcome you back, and lay plans to take it, also."

"You paint a pretty picture!" Croyden laughed.

Macloud shrugged his shoulders.

"Tell me of Royster & Axtell," he said.

"There isn't a great deal to tell," Croyden replied, coming around from
the dressing table, and drawing on his vest as he came. "It is five
years since my father died and left me sole heir to his estate. In
round numbers, it aggregated half a million dollars--all in stocks and
bonds, except a little place down on the Eastern Shore which he took,
some years before he died, in payment of a debt due him. Since my
mother's demise my father had led the life of quiet and retirement in a
small city. I went through college, was given a year abroad, took the
law course at Harvard, and settled down to the business of getting a
practice. Then the