"For a lifetime," he said reverentially. "I will tell you my father's story."
"Do!" I encouraged him. "I should like to hear it."
I lit another cigar. He cleared his throat and began.
[CHAPTER IV]
"Our family," said young Perry, "has held a good position in Culbut for many generations. My great-grandfather is said to have come here as a boy with ten thousand pounds in his pocket; but by diligence and sobriety he managed to get rid of nearly all of it while he was still a young man."
"How did he do it?" I asked.
"He got into the warehouse of a poor cloth-merchant. He stuck to his work night and day, and lost his employers so much money, that they took him into partnership when he was only twenty-one. Then he redoubled his efforts, bought in the dearest markets and sold in the cheapest, and decreased the trade of the firm by leaps and bounds. He married his master's daughter, and she brought him a considerable number of debts. Before he was thirty he had retired from business a very poor man, and spent the rest of his life serving his fellow citizens. He was Lord Mayor of Culbut three times, and was offered a baronetcy, which he refused.