s irretrievably as
I appeared to have lost my larger one. Clearly my financial genius was
asleep, or off assisting at a sacrifice; and it did little good, as I
toiled home in the afternoon, to curse myself frantically for a perverse
and a thankless brute. It was too late now; I had played the fool once
too often and the money was gone. Was my brain weakened permanently by
the fever, I wondered? Had the muscles of my will dwindled away and
grown flabby, like the muscles of my body?

As I left the car, a group of school children ran along the pavement in
front of me, and then scattering like pigeons, fluttered after a big,
old-fashioned barouche that had turned the corner. When it came nearer,
I saw that the barouche was the General's, a piece of family property
which had descended to him from his father, and that the great man now
sat on the deep, broadcloth-covered cushions, his legs very far apart,
his hands clasped on his gold-headed walking-stick, and his square,
mottled face staring straight ahead, with that look of tenacity, as if
he were saying somewhere back in his brain, "I'll hang on to the death."

Before our door, where Sally was waiting in her hat and veil, the
barouche drew up with a flourish; Balaam, the old negro coachman,
settled himself for a doze on the box, and the pair of fat roans began
switching their long tails in the faces of the swarming school children.

"So you're just in time, Ben," remarked the General, while he hobbled
out in order to help Sally in. "I thought you'd have been at home at
least an hour ago. Meant to come earlier, but something went wrong at
the stables. Something always is wrong at the stables. I wouldn't be in
George's shoes for a mint of money. Never a day passes that he isn't
fussing about his horses, or his traps, or his groom. Well, you're
ready, Sally? I like a woman who is punctual, and I never in my life
knew but one who was. That was your Aunt Matoaca. You get it from her, I
suppose. Ah, _she_ never kept you waiting a minute,--no fussing about
gloves or fans or handkerchiefs. Always just ready when you came for
her, and looking like an angel. Never saw her in a rose-lined bonnet,
did you, my dear?"

"Only in black, General," replied Sally, as she took her seat in the
barouche. "Come, get in, Ben, we're going to reveal our secret at last,
and we want you to be with us."

The General got in again with difficulty, groaning a little; I entered
and sat down opposite