“He’ll get hold of it some way or other, mark what I tell you, and you might just as well have it as anybody. Somebody’s going to cop it. I think you said you lived in Filmore? Suppose I drop through there with a quick-turn proposition that would need two or three thousand, and would show that much profit in a couple of months? If you help me pull it through I’ll give you a slice out of it.”
Wix was deeply thoughtful, but he made no reply.
“You don’t live this way all the time, and you’d like to,” urged the other. “There’s no reason you shouldn’t. Why, man, the bulk of this country is composed of suckers that are able to lay hands on from one to ten thousand apiece. They’ll spend ten years to get it and can be separated from it in ten minutes. You’re one of the born separators. You were cut out for nothing but easy money.”
Easy money! The phrase sank into the very soul of Jonathan Reuben Wix. Every professional, commercial and manufacturing man who knew him had predicted for him a brilliant future; but they had given him false credit for his father’s patience to plod for years. Heredity had only given him, upon his father’s side, selfishness and ingenuity; upon his mother’s side, selfishness and a passion for luxurious comfort, and now, at twenty-six, he was still a young man without any prospect whatsoever.
Easy money! He was still dreaming of it; looking lazily for chance to throw it his way, and reading law, commercial law principally, in a desultory fashion, though absorbing more than he knew, when one day, about six months afterward, the black-haired young man landed in Filmore. He was growing a sparse, jet-black mustache now, and wore a solemn, black frock-coat which fitted his slender frame like a glove. He walked first into the Filmore Bank, and by his mere appearance there nearly scared Clifford Gilman into fits.
“I guess you don’t remember me,” said the stranger with a smile. “My name is Horace G. Daw, and I had the pleasure of doing a little business with you at the Putnam County Fair.”
“Yes, I—I—remember,” admitted Gilman, thankful that there were no depositors in, and looking apprehensively out of the door. “What can I do for you?”
“I have a little business opportunity that I think would about suit you,” said Mr. Daw, reaching toward his inside coat pocket.
“Not here; not here!” Gilman nervously interrupted him. “Somebody might come in at any minute, even Mr. Smalley himself. He’s started for the train, but he might come back.”
“When, then, can I see you?” demanded Daw, seeing that Gilman was afraid of him. He had intended to meet the young man upon terms of jovial cordiality, but this was better.