“And suppose this gold-fat fool has his millions,” muttered the young man, as he turned away from the windows. “That is no reason why he should shatter the eardrums of people as they pass about their business.”
“Extree! Eight o’clock! Great fortune!”
Kenyon beckoned the boy, and in a moment he had a paper. Somehow, as he turned and walked toward Thirty-sixth Street, the realization suddenly came to him of how badly off he was; and he scowled at the shadowy future, a sudden, sobering fear at his heart. But this was only for a moment. The man who had stood at the side of Nunez on that last dreadful night in Montevideo was not one to allow a little ill-luck to cast him down; so with chin up and shoulders squared, Kenyon threw the thing from him with a laugh.
At the corner of Thirty-sixth Street he paused and opened the paper. In great, black type the following stared at him:
WHO IS THE HEIR?
$200,000,000!
COLOSSAL FORTUNE OF STEPHEN AUSTIN
HANGS IN THE BALANCE.
Kenyon did not read farther, but folded the paper and stood tapping it thoughtfully in his open palm.
“The human mind,” he muttered, “can scarcely grasp the meaning of such a sum. And for one man to possess it all makes me suspect that something is out of kelter with our system of doing things. Here I am broke, and with the prospect of a succession of dinnerless days before me; and then here is another fellow with tons of money and no one to give it to. If I had the running of things I’d take down the bars on some of the fat pasture-land and let the lean cattle do a little private grazing.”
Upon the opposite side of Broadway a hansom was drawn up at the curb. Kenyon’s eyes rested absently upon the veiled woman who sat within it. He saw her speak a few hasty words to the driver; then he noted the man’s quick glance in his direction, and the smart swish of the long whip over the roof of the vehicle. The hansom rattled across the street and drew up beside him; the woman leaned forward.
“I was beginning to think that you had failed us,” she said.
A whimsical look came into Kenyon’s eyes; then he smiled good-naturedly.