"As I said before, I can trust you, Thurston, and though I've many
interested friends I'm a somewhat lonely man. I don't know why I
should tell you this, it isn't quite like me, but the seizure shook me,
and I just feel that way. Besides, in return for your promise, I owe
you the confidence. Give me some more wine, and I'll try to tell you
how I spent my strength in gaining what is called success."

"I won by hard work; started life as a bridge carpenter, and starved
myself to buy the best text-books," Savine began presently. "Bid
always for something better than what I had, and generally got it; ran
through a big bridge-building contract at twenty-five, and fell in love
with my daughter's mother when I'd finished it. I had risen at a bound
from working foreman--she was the daughter of one of the proudest
poverty-stricken Frenchmen in old Quebec. Well, it would make a long
story, but I married her, and she taught me much worth knowing, besides
helping me on until, when I had all my savings locked up in apparently
profitless schemes, I tried for a great bridge contract. I also got
it, but there was political jobbery, and the opposition, learning from
my rival how I was fixed, required a big deposit before the agreement
was signed."

Savine paused a full minute, and helped himself to more wine before he
proceeded. "The deposit was to be paid in fourteen days from the time
I got the notice, or the tender would be advertised for again, and I
hadn't half the amount handy. I couldn't realize on my possessions
without an appalling loss, but I swore I would hold on to that
contract, and I did it. It was always my way to pick up any odd
information I could, and I learned that a certain mining shaft was
likely to strike high-pay ore. I got the information from a workman
who left the mine to serve me, so I caught the first train, made a long
journey, and rode over a bad pass to reach the shaft. How I dealt with
the manager doesn't greatly matter, but though I neither bribed nor
threatened him he showed me what I wanted to see. I rode back over
pass and down moraine through blinding snow, went on without rest or
sleep to the city, borrowed what I could--I wasn't so well known then,
and it was mighty little--and bought up as much of that mine's stock on
margins as the money would cover. The news was being held back, but
other men were buying quietly. Still--well, they had to sleep and get
their dinners, and I, who c