([P. 306])
“Come up to my room,” said Thompson, “I want to tell you something.”
Shaw pleaded a dinner engagement, but his old friend would not be denied. “Come up, anyway,” he pleaded, “I won’t keep you long.”
Arrived in the room, Thompson put off his coat, threw himself on the bed and lay there in much distress.
“Don’t talk for a little while,” he begged. Shaw read the paper for a quarter of an hour, and then rose. Thompson begged for more time, and again Shaw tried to read the news, and to divine Thompson’s malady.
At last Thompson said:
“Shaw, I’ve made a million dollars to-day, and I can’t get over it.”
Shaw thought the malady needed an alienist, and expressed his disbelief.
“Oh, yes, I have,” Thompson persisted. “I’ve bought the Ogilvie Milling Company, and the deal’s worth a million dollars to me.” He explained how Hosmer and the Allans had found the money; and the direction of the Merchants’ Bank was involved in the transaction. The agitation superinduced by an avalanche of wealth subsided in due course; and Fred Thompson developed a remarkably cool imperturbability in presence of oodles of cash.