This particular boy has just had his first experience, and that is the excuse for this story—if an excuse is needed. He has laid the foundation stone upon which he is going to build his life, and in the building he will use many stones of many colors, sizes and shapes.
You see him sitting there disconsolate, miserable and wretched. His home, as luxurious a one as anybody would want, is not more than a dozen blocks away, and he will wind up there in the course of the next forty-eight hours, for he is practically broke.
I call him The Boy With The Ten Thousand Dollar Bill.
Just a few years ago his father died. A few weeks later the family lawyer was in the drawing room reading the will of the deceased, and near the end of the document he came to a clause which stipulated:
“On his twenty-first birthday my son shall receive from the balance of moneys unexpended a bill of the denomination of $10,000 to do with as he shall see fit, and he shall not be asked to account for the expenditure of it to anyone in any way whatsoever.”
That was a curious item for even a curious will, but the estate was big and the founder of that fortune felt evidently that he could afford to experiment with a mere ten thousand, even after his death, that the lesson might be of benefit to the heir.
The object is obvious.
The boy became of age, and on that day he received the bank note which to him seemed like a fortune, so he felt that he owned the world.
A man can do a lot of good in New York with that amount of money, and a boy can do a lot of harm.
This boy knew in advance the good fortune that was coming to him, and in looking around he made up his mind that the first thing a man of his means should buy would be an automobile costing $4,000, so the day he got the money he bought the car, and he received in exchange a bundle of crisp five hundred bills.