“About three weeks.”
“Faithfully every day?”
“Just as the market held out. I never bought haphazard. My early experience told me that was ruinous policy—that it was like a game of chess—each move was but the single play of a series—each move must have a meaning.”
Again that shrewd head of the veteran wags—such talk pleases him.
“What success have you had from the start?”
“In the beginning, very bad. You can see here I went deep in the mire. Then I began to reason, and had gleams of success. The second week was a see-saw, with Claude Wycherley a million or two in the soup. This last week everything I touched turned to gold, and I’m three times a millionaire—on paper.”
“Young men, good-day. You may come around to my office to-morrow, if at liberty. I have a place for you to fill. We’ll harness this genius of yours to common-sense dollars.”
Then he leaves the hotel.
“Aleck, my dear fellow, catch me—I’m going to faint. Did you hear what he said? In a week it will read Cereal & Wycherley. Think of it, ye gods! Fortune at one bound. I’m in the saddle at last. Good-by, follies of the past with your haunting ghosts—welcome a golden future; perhaps, who knows, egad, a wife!”