“People are sure to hate those whom they have injured. That is a lesson I have learned in a rather varied career.”
“I don’t know that Mr. Simpson has tried to injure me, unless by discharging me from his employment.”
“Hasn’t he taken you back again?”
“No.”
“I think he would like to drive you out of the village,” said Mr. Darke, thoughtfully. “The sight of you is unpleasant to him.”
“Why should it be?”
“Why? I will tell you presently. But I must first proceed with my own story. I arrived in New York with the five hundred dollars which my kind friend Simpson had given me. My first business, as you can well imagine, was to procure a more suitable dress; in other words, to restore myself to society by assuming a respectable appearance. That did not take long. I ran across a friend of more prosperous days, and learned that he was in business in Wall Street, as a broker. He gave me a valuable point, bought for me a line of stocks, which went up five per cent. the first day, and, in brief, has so manipulated my little fund that the five hundred dollars which I brought from Wilton have already increased to five thousand.”
“I didn’t think such things were possible,” said Tom, dazzled by the recital of this remarkable success.
“They are possible but not probable. The probability was that I should lose all my money, or at any rate, the greater part of it, but fortune happened to be propitious, and I am a rich man, that is, I consider myself so. As three weeks since I hadn’t a penny, you may consider that I am justified in my view.”
“I should consider myself rich with one thousand dollars,” said Tom.