“Come, out with it; I want the truth.”
“Well, you’ll have to practice strict economy to make up for your enormous expenditure of the last few years. Do you want to sell your house?”
“Economy? Sell the house? Julie!—impossible.”
“Nowadays a man can’t live on interest.”
Floyd snapped his fingers.
“Economy, bah! We’ll have to create new capital.” The Colonel opened a drawer, took out a card of the Garrison estate, kept as a physician does the history of a patient’s disease; then he placed a map on the table. It was interlaced with red lines designating the shrinkage. Floyd looked over it.
“The entire water-front is crossed off, I see.”
“Yes, the Martin Steele Corporation bought it for investment. By the way, that was a great thing young Steele did.”
“What thing?”
“He left his entire business to his employees, equal shares, and the money to keep it going. Waldbridge told me about it with tears in his eyes, the other day, at the memorial service they gave for him.”