"Ah, if I were only a rich man too!"
"What would you do?"
"I should spend. How I should spend!" He licked his lips at the thought of the pleasures of body that money could buy him.
"I should save," said the other. "I should make myself the richest man in the world. That would be glorious!"
These last words reached the ears of Matheson, and set up a curious train of thought as he drove in his cab to his office in the Rue Laffitte. The words carried him back to a forest-clearing in the backwoods of Ontario, where he and his half-brother had made holiday camp some eighteen years before. They were comparing ambitions—two young men unusually alike in features but very different in temperament and will-power. John Rivière, the elder of the two, was dreaming of fame in the paths of science—he had worked his way through M'Gill University and was hoping for a demonstratorship to keep him in living expenses. Clifford Matheson, a clerk in a broker's office, planned his life in terms of cities and money. "To make big money—that's what I call success."
In the rapids of the stream by their feet was a swirl of waters covering a sunken rock, and Rivière had thrown on to it a chip of wood. The chip was whirled round and round, nearer and nearer to the centre, until finally it was sucked under with a sudden extinguishment.
"There's the life you plan," he had said to Clifford....
CHAPTER II
A £5,000,000 DEAL
When Matheson reached his office, he was told by a clerk that Mr Lars Larssen was already waiting to see him. He threw off his gloves and fur-lined coat and adjusted the lights before he answered that his visitor could be shown in. He added that the clerk could lock up his own rooms and leave, as he would not be wanted any longer that evening.