their profits. Now I wanted thirty dollars' worth of artist-truck, for

I was always sketching in the woods; my allowance was for the time

exhausted; I had begun to regard the exchange (with my father's help)

as a place where money was to be got for stooping; and in an evil hour

I realised three thousand dollars of the college paper and bought my

easel.

It was a Wednesday morning when the things arrived, and set me in

the seventh heaven of satisfaction. My father (for I can scarcely say

myself) was trying at this time a "straddle" in wheat between Chicago

and New York; the operation so called is, as you know, one of the

most tempting and least safe upon the chess-board of finance. On the

Thursday, luck began to turn against my father's calculations; and by

the Friday evening, I was posted on the boards as a defaulter for the

second time. Here was a rude blow: my father would have taken it ill

enough in any case; for however much a man may resent the incapacity of

an only son, he will feel his own more sensibly. But it chanced that, in

our bitter cup of failure, there was one ingredient that might truly be

called poisonous. He had been keeping the run of my position; he missed

the three thousand dollars, paper; and in his view, I had stolen thirty

dollars, currency. It was an extreme view perhaps; but in some senses,

it was just: and my father, although (to my judgment) quite reckless of

honesty in the essence of his operations, was the soul of honour as to

their details. I had one grieved letter from him, dignified and tender;

and during the rest of that wretched term, working as a clerk, selling

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