Old Skinner rubbed his hands. “These are wise words, sir.”
“No, only clever ones. This is book-learning. It is the sort of wisdom you and I have outgrown these forty years. Why, at his age I was choke-full of maxims. They are good things to read; but act proverbs, and into the Gazette you go. My faith in any general position has melted away with the snow of my seventy winters.”
“What, then, if it was established that all adders bite, would you refuse to believe his adder would bite you, sir?”
“Dick, if a single adder bit me, it would go farther to convince me that the next adder would bite me too than if fifty young Buffons told me all adders bite.”
The senile youth was disconcerted for a single moment. He hesitated. The keys that the old man had himself said would unlock his judgment lay beside him on the table. He could not help glancing slyly at them, but he would not use them before their turn. His mind was methodical. His will was strong in all things. He put his hand in his side-pocket, and drew out a quantity of papers neatly arranged, tied, and indorsed.
The old men instantly bestowed a more watchful sort of attention on him.
“This, gentlemen, is a list of the joint-stock companies created last year. What do you suppose is their number?”
“Fifty, I'll be bound, Mr. Richard.”
“More than that, Skinner. Say eighty.”
“Two hundred and forty-three, gentlemen. Of these some were
stillborn, but the majority hold the market. The capital proposed to
be subscribed on the sum total is two hundred and forty-eight
millions.”