y Jove! And where did he get it?"

"Perseverance, sir. Put by a shilling a day, and let it have its
natural increase, and see what it will come to at the end of fifty
years. I suppose old Wharton has been putting by two or three
thousand out of his professional income, at any rate for the last
thirty years, and never for a moment forgetting its natural increase.
That's one way to make a fortune."

"It ain't rapid enough for you and me, Lopez."

"No. That was the old-fashioned way, and the most sure. But, as
you say, it is not rapid enough; and it robs a man of the power of
enjoying his money when he has made it. But it's a very good thing
to be closely connected with a man who has already done that kind of
thing. There's no doubt about the money when it is there. It does not
take to itself wings and fly away."

"But the man who has it sticks to it uncommon hard."

"Of course he does;--but he can't take it away with him."

"He can leave it to hospitals, Lopez. That's the devil!"

"Sexty, my boy, I see you have taken an outlook into human life which
does you credit. Yes, he can leave it to hospitals. But why does he
leave it to hospitals?"

"Something of being afraid about his soul, I suppose."

"No; I don't believe in that. Such a man as this, who has been
hard-fisted all his life, and who has had his eyes thoroughly open,
who has made his own money in the sharp intercourse of man to man,
and who keeps it to the last gasp,--he doesn't believe that he'll do
his soul any good by giving it to hospitals when he can't keep it
himself any longer. His mind has freed itself from those cobwebs long
since. He gives his money to hospitals because the last pleasure of
which he is capable is that of spiting his relations. And it is a
great pleasure to an old man, when his relations have been disgusted
with him for being old and loving his money. I rather think I should
do it myself."

"I'd give myself a chance of going to heaven, I think," said Parker.

"Don't you know that men will rob and cheat on their death-beds, and
say their prayers all the time? Old Wharton won't leave his money to
hospitals if he's well handled by those about him."

"And you'll handle him well;--eh, Lopez?"

"I won't quarrel with him, or tell him that he's a curmudgeon because
he doesn't do all that I want him. He's over seventy, and he can't
carry his money with him."

All this left so vivid an impression of the wisdom of his friend on
the