CHAPTER XXIX.—ON THE ADVANTAGES OF READY MONEY.
ARCHIE BROWN was the only son of Mr. John Brown, the eminent contractor. Mr. John Brown had been a man of simple habits and no tastes. When a working navvy he had acquired a liking for oatmeal porridge, and up to the day of his death, when he had some twenty thousand persons in his employment, each of them earning money for him, he never rose above this comestible. He lived a thoroughly happy life, taking no thought about money, and having no idea, beyond the building of drinking fountains in his native town, how to spend the profits realized on his enormous transactions.
Now, as the building of even the most complete system of drinking fountains, in a small town in Scotland, does not produce much impression upon the financial position of a man with some millions of pounds in cash, and making business profits to the extent of two hundred thousand a year, it was inevitable that, when a brick one afternoon fell on Mr. John Brown’s head and fractured his skull so severely as to cause his death, his only son should be left very well provided for.
Archie Brown was left provided with some millions in cash, and with property that yielded him about one hundred pounds a day.
Up to the day of his father’s death he had never had more than five hundred a year to spend as pocket-money—he had saved even out of this modest sum, for he had scarcely any more expensive tastes than his father, though he had ever regarded sole à la Normande as more palatable than oatmeal porridge as a breakfast dish.
He had never caused his father a moment’s uneasiness; but as soon as he was given a bird’s eye view, so to speak, of his income, he began to ask himself if there might not be something in the world more palatable even than sole à la Normande.
In the course of a year or two he had learned a good deal on the subject of what was palatable and what was not; for from the earliest records it is understood that the knowledge of good and the knowledge of evil may be found on the one tree.
He began to be talked about, and that is always worth paying money for—some excellent judges say that it is the only thing worth paying money for. Occasionally he paid a trifle over the market price for this commodity. But then he knew that he generally paid more than the market price for everything that he bought, from his collars, which were unusually high, down to his boots, which were of glazed kid, so that he did not complain.