No other
man's name was oftener mentioned in the daily journals in connection with
some bold and successful operation. He seemed to thrive on panics, and
to grow strong and rich with every turn of the wheel. There is only one
stock expression in America for a man who is very able and unscrupulous,
and carries things successfully with a high hand--he is Napoleonic. It
needed only a few brilliant operations, madly reckless in appearance but
successful, to give Ault the newspaper sobriquet of the Young Napoleon.

"Papa, what does he mean?" asked the eldest boy. "Jim Dustin says the
papers call you Napoleon."

"It means, my boy," said Ault, with a grim smile, that I am devoted to
your mother, St. Helena."

"Don't say that, Murad," exclaimed his wife; I'm far enough from a saint,
and your destiny isn't the Island."

"What's the Island, mamma?"

"It's a place people are sent to for their health."

"In a boat? Can I go?"

"You ask too many questions, Sinclair," said Mr. Ault; "it's time you
were off to school."

There seems to have been not the least suspicion in this household that
the head of it was a pirate.

It must be said that Mavick still looked upon Ault as an adventurer, one
of those erratic beings who appear from time to time in the Street, upset
everything, and then disappear. They had been associated occasionally in
small deals, and Ault had more than once appealed to Mavick, as a great
capitalist, with some promising scheme. They had, indeed, co-operated in
reorganizing a Western railway, but seemed to have come out of the
operation without increased confidence in each other. What had occurred
nobody knew, but thereafter there developed a slight antagonism between
the two operators. Ault went no more to consult the elder man, and they
had two or three little bouts, in which Mavick did not get the best of
it. This was not an unusual thing in the Street. Mr. Ault never
expressed his opinion of Mr. Mavick, but it became more and more apparent
that their interests were opposed. Some one who knew both men, and said
that the one was as cold and selfish as a pike, and the other was a most
unscrupulous dare-devil, believed that Mavick had attempted some sort of
a trick on Ault, and that it was the kind of thing that the Spaniard (his
complexion had given him this nickname) never forgot.

It is not intended to enter into a defense of the local pool known as the
New York Stock Exchange. It needs none. Some regar