the dying road seemed to leap
into life. It had not an _employe_ who did not know and take off his hat
to the General. He was a kind of god, to whom they all bowed down; and
to be addressed or chaffed by him was an honor to be reported to
friends, and borne home with self-gratulations to wives and children.

The General, of course, had moments of superlative happiness. He never
had enjoyed anything more than he enjoyed his railroad. His notoriety
with the common people along the line--the idea which they cherished
that he could do anything he wished to do; that he had only to lift his
hand to win gold to himself or to bear it to them--these were pleasant
in themselves; but to have their obeisance witnessed by his city friends
and associates, while they discussed his champagne and boned turkey from
the abounding hampers which always furnished "the President's car"--this
was the crown of his pleasure. He had a pleasure, too, in business. He
never had enough to do, and the railroad which would have loaded down an
ordinary man with an ordinary conscience, was only a pleasant diversion
to him. Indeed, he was wont to reiterate, when rallied upon his new
enterprise: "The fact was, I had to do something for my health, you
know."

Still, the General was not what could be called a thoroughly happy man.
He knew the risks he ran on Change. He had been reminded, by two or
three mortifying losses, that the sun did not always shine on Wall
street. He knew that his railroad was a bubble, and that sooner or later
it would burst. Times would change, and, after all, there was nothing
that would last like his manufactures. With a long foresight, he had
ordered the funds received from the Prussian sales of the Belcher rifle
to be deposited with a European banking house at interest, to be drawn
against in his foreign purchases of material; yet he never drew against
this deposit. Self-confident as he was, glutted with success as he was,
he had in his heart a premonition that some time he might want that
money just where it was placed. So there it lay, accumulating interest.
It was an anchor to windward, that would hold him if ever his bark
should drift into shallow or dangerous waters.

The grand trouble was, that he did not own a single patent by which he
was thriving in both branches of his manufactures. He had calculated
upon worrying the inventor into a sale, and had brought his designs very
nearly to realization, when he found, to his