"Well, Dick," Molly lowered her voice, "she has something on her mind. I don't know what—she hasn't told me yet. But she will. It's some trouble. Sometimes the tears come into her eyes for nothing; sometimes she has fits of abstraction, when she hears nothing that you say; sometimes she becomes agitated, and her heart begins to flutter. I don't know what the trouble is, but it robs her life of happiness. She wants something. She goes to church and prays for it. If she were not such a good woman, I should think she had done something."
"What shall I play for her?"
"Play something that will rouse her. Play one of your descriptive things, Dick. I will play an accompaniment for you. Make the fiddle talk to her, as you know how. Nobody plays the fiddle quite so well as you, Dick."
They dined in the public room, where Molly observed, with profit, making mental notes, the dresses of the ladies. Dick, on his part, as an observer of manners, listened to the conversation and wasted his time. Most conversation in public places is naught; very few people can say anything worth hearing, either in public or in private; most people cannot forget that they are in a public place and may be overheard—but the modesty is passing away. The world follows the example of the young man who was admonished by Swift not to set up for a wit, "because," he said, "there are ten thousand chances to one against you." The young man took that advice, and is, therefore, unknown to history.
At this table the conversation was difficult, not so much because there was no wit among the small company, as because there were no opportunities for the display of wit. It is necessary for wit to have something to work upon; there can be no repartee where there is no talk. It is also difficult, if you think of it, to provide conversation for an elderly gentleman, who for the greater part of his life has been more accustomed to pork and beans than to côtelettes à la Soubise; who has habitually consumed bad coffee with his dinner, instead of claret and champagne; who is wholly ignorant of literature; has never looked upon a good picture; and has never heard of science except in connection with railways; who was originally apprenticed to a gardener; who in early life belonged to the Primitive Methodists. He might have discoursed upon shares and corners, but on such matters not even his own wife knew anything.
One is apt to imagine that the man who has rapidly made millions by playing upon the gambling spirit of the people, upon their greed, and their credulity, and their ignorance, must have moments, at least, of misgiving, perhaps of remorse. We talk of the ruined homes, the wrecks of families, the desolated hearths. Well, that is not the way in which the man who has succeeded where the rest all fail, looks at it. It is not the way in which John Haveril regards his own career. He puts it in his own way this evening at dinner. Unaccustomed to the society of the rich, Dick dropped some remark, slightly mal à propos, about money-making.
"In Yorkshire, sir," said John Haveril, "when a man buys a horse, he buys him as he stands. It's his business to find out that animal's faults. It's the business of the owner to crack up the animal. That's trading, all the world over. The man who wins, is the man who knows. The man who loses, is the man who gambles. I have never gambled."
"I thought it was all gambling."
"I buy stocks which I know are going up. I buy mines when there is going to be a run upon mines. I buy land where I know there will be built a town. Other people buy because they see others buying. The world gambles all the time. Men like me, sir, do not gamble. We buy for the rise in the market, which we understand."
"I know nothing, really," said Dick, abashed.