Beautiful credit! The foundation of modern society. Who shall say that this is not the golden age of mutual trust, of unlimited reliance upon human promises? That is a peculiar condition of society which enables a whole nation to instantly recognize point and meaning in the familiar newspaper anecdote, which puts into the mouth of a distinguished speculator in lands and mines this remark:—“I wasn’t worth a cent two years ago, and now I owe two millions of dollars.”
CHAPTER XXVII.
It was a hard blow to poor Sellers to see the work on his darling enterprise stop, and the noise and bustle and confusion that had been such refreshment to his soul, sicken and die out. It was hard to come down to humdrum ordinary life again after being a General Superintendent and the most conspicuous man in the community. It was sad to see his name disappear from the newspapers; sadder still to see it resurrected at intervals, shorn of its aforetime gaudy gear of compliments and clothed on with rhetorical tar and feathers.
But his friends suffered more on his account than he did. He was a cork that could not be kept under the water many moments at a time.
He had to bolster up his wife’s spirits every now and then. On one of these occasions he said:
“It’s all right, my dear, all right; it will all come right in a little while. There’s $200,000 coming, and that will set things booming again: Harry seems to be having some difficulty, but that’s to be expected—you can’t move these big operations to the tune of Fisher’s Hornpipe, you know. But Harry will get it started along presently, and then you’ll see! I expect the news every day now.”
“But Beriah, you’ve been expecting it every day, all along, haven’t you?”
“Well, yes; yes—I don’t know but I have. But anyway, the longer it’s delayed, the nearer it grows to the time when it will start—same as every day you live brings you nearer to—nearer—”
“The grave?”