pleasant it is to have money!--

if only he knew how much!

And yet . . . Although philosophers in all ages have descanted on the
blessings of Hope, and the part played by Imagination in making
tolerable the business of living--so that men in the mass not only
carry life through with courage but will turn and fight desperately
for it, like stags at bay--it is to be doubted if one in ten ever
guesses how constantly he is sustained by this spirit scorning the
substance, gallantly blind, with promises lifting him over defeat.
I dare to say that, save for the strength of hope it put into him,
this wealth, so suddenly poured at Nicky-Nan's feet, doubled his
discomfort, physical and mental.

Of his physical discomfort, just now, there could be no question.
He could not find courage to leave his trove and climb the stairs
back to his bedroom. Some one might rob him while he slept, and--
horror!--he would never even know of how much he had been robbed.
The anguish in his leg forbade his standing sentry: the night wanted
almost three hours of dawn. Shirt and trousers were his only
garments.

He knelt and groped on the stone floor to a corner clear of the
fallen rubbish. On his way his fingers encountered a coin and
clutched it--comfort, tangible proof that he had not been dreaming.
He seated himself in the corner, propping his back there, and fell to
speculating--sensing the coin in his palm, fingering it from time to
time.

The Old Doctor had always, in his lifetime, been accounted a
well-to-do man. . . . Very likely he had started this hoard in
Bonaparte's days, and had gone on adding to it in the long years of
peace. . . . It would certainly be a hundred pounds. It might be a
thousand. One thousand pounds!

But no--not so fast! Put it at a hundred only, and daylight would be
the unlikelier to bring disappointment. The scattered coins he had
seen by that one brief flash of the candle danced and multiplied
themselves before his eyes like dots of fire in the darkness.
Still he resolutely kept their numbers down to one hundred.

A hundred pounds! . . . Why, that, or even fifty, meant all the
difference in life to him. He could look Pamphlett in the face now.
He would step down to the Bank to-morrow, slap seven sovereigns down
on the counter--but not too boldly; for Pamphlett must not suspect--
and demand the change in silver, with his receipt. Full quittance--
he could see Pamphlett's face as he fetched forth t