"In Government Stocks—by the help of Mr. Cassilis. No more of the unholy traffic in shares which you buy to sell again. No, sir. That means makin' the widow weep and the minister swear; an' I don't know which spectacle of those two is the more melancholy for a Christian man. All in stocks—Government Stocks, safe and easy to draw out, with the interest comin' in regular as the chant of the cuckoo-clock."
"Well, can't you let it stay there?"
"No, Mr. Dunquerque, I can't. There's the voice of that blessed Inseck in the box there, night and day in my ears. And it says, plain as speech can make it, 'Do something with the money.'"
"You have bought a few pictures."
"Yes, sir: I have begun the great Gilead P. Beck collection. And when that is finished, I guess there'll be no collection on this airth to show a candle to it. But that's personal vanity. That's not what the Golden Butterfly wants."
"Would he like you to have a yacht? A good deal may be chucked over a yacht. That is, a good deal for what we Englishmen call a rich man."
"When I go home again I mean to build a yacht, and sail her over here and race you people at Cowes—all the same as the America, twenty years ago. But not yet."
"There are a few trifles going about which run away with money. Polo, now. If you play polo hard enough, you may knock up a pony every game. But I suppose that would not be expensive enough for you. You couldn't ride two ponies at once, I suppose, like a circus fellow."
"Selfish luxury, Mr. Dunquerque," said Gilead, with an almost prayerful twang, "is not the platform of the Golden Butterfly. I should like to ride two ponies at once, but it's not to be thought of. And my legs are too long for any but a Kentucky pony."
"Is the Turf selfish luxury, I wonder?" asked Jack. "A good deal of money can be got through on the Turf. Nothing, of course, compared with your pile; but still, you might make a sensible hole in it by judicious backing."