ies and the rooster dies, there is one thing Midas has had
and rooster has not. Midas has had the excitement of accumulating
what he has grubbed, and that has been his life and his love and
his god. He cannot take that god with him when he dies. I wonder
if the worthy gods are those we can take with us.

Midas must teach all to be as Midas; the young must be raised in
his religion--

The manuscript ended there, and Sheridan was not anxious for more.
He crumpled the sheets into a ball, depositing it (with vigor) in a
waste-basket beside him; then, rising, he consulted a Cyclopedia of
Names, which a book-agent had somehow sold to him years before; a
volume now first put to use for the location of "Midas." Having read the
legend, Sheridan walked up and down the spacious office, exhaling
the breath of contempt. "Dam' fool!" he mumbled. But this was no new
thought, nor was the contrariness of Bibbs's notes a surpise to him; and
presently he dismissed the matter from his mind.

He felt very lonely, and this was, daily, his hardest hour. For a long
time he and Jim had lunched together habitually. Roscoe preferred a
club luncheon, but Jim and his father almost always went to a small
restaurant near the Sheridan Building, where they spent twenty minutes
in the consumption of food, and twenty in talk, with cigars. Jim came
for his father every day, at five minutes after twelve, and Sheridan
was again in his office at five minutes before one. But now that Jim no
longer came, Sheridan remained alone in his office; he had not gone out
to lunch since Jim's death, nor did he have anything sent to him--he
fasted until evening.

It was the time he missed Jim personally the most--the voice and eyes
and handshake, all brisk and alert, all business-like. But these things
were not the keenest in Sheridan's grief; his sense of loss went far
deeper. Roscoe was dependable, a steady old wheel-horse, and that was
a great comfort; but it was in Jim that Sheridan had most happily
perceived his own likeness. Jim was the one who would have been surest
to keep the great property growing greater, year by year. Sheridan had
fallen asleep, night after night, picturing what the growth would be
under Jim. He had believed that Jim was absolutely certain to be one of
the biggest men in the country. Well, it was all up to Roscoe now!

That reminded him of a question he had in mind to ask Roscoe. It was a
question Sheridan considered of no