"My first impulse was to kill him on the spot. I wish now that I had.
I restrained myself, however, and offered him the alternative of being thrown from the window or of leaving by the door without another word.
"He answered that he was quite prepared to go by the window if I would first tell him whether to put his money in the Terra del Fuego Nitrate Company, Limited, or in the Union Pacific Bank.
Life had no further interest for him.
All he cared for was to feel that this little nest-egg was safely laid by for the benefit of his beloved ones after he was gone.
"He pressed me to tell him what I thought of nitrates.
I replied that I declined to say anything whatever on the subject.
He assumed from my answer that I did not think much of nitrates, and announced his intention of investing the money, in consequence, in the Union Pacific Bank.
"I told him by all means to do so, if he liked.
"He paused, and seemed to be puzzling it out. Then he smiled knowingly, and said he thought he understood what I meant.
It was very kind of me.
He should put every dollar he possessed in the Terra del Fuego Nitrate Company.
"He rose (with difficulty) to go.
I stopped him. I knew, as certainly as I knew the sun would rise the next morning, that whichever company I advised him, or he persisted in thinking I had advised him (which was the same thing), to invest in, would, sooner or later, come to smash.
My grandmother had all her little fortune in the Terra del Fuego Nitrate Company.
I could not see her brought to penury in her old age.
As for Josiah, it could make no difference to him whatever. He would lose his money in any event.
I advised him to invest in Union Pacific Bank Shares.
He went and did it.
"The Union Pacific Bank held out for eighteen months. Then it began to totter.
The financial world stood bewildered. It had always been reckoned one of the safest banks in the country. People asked what could be the cause.
I knew well enough, but I did not tell.
"The Bank made a gallant fight, but the hand of fate was upon it.
At the end of another nine months the crash came.
"(Nitrates, it need hardly be said, had all this time been going up by leaps and bounds.
My grandmother died worth a million dollars, and left the whole of it to a charity.
Had she known how I had saved her from ruin, she might have been more grateful.)
"A few days after the failure of the Bank, Josiah arrived on my doorstep; and, this time, he brought his families with him.
There were sixteen of them in all.
"What was I to do?
I had brought these people step by step to the verge of starvation.
I had laid waste alike their happiness and their prospects in life.
The least amends I could make was to see that at all events they did not want for the necessities of existence.
"That was seventeen years ago.
I am still seeing that they do not want for the necessities of existence; and my conscience is growing easier by noticing that they seem contented with their lot.
There are twenty-two of them now, and we have hopes of another in the spring.
"That is my story," he said.
"Perhaps you will now understand my sudden emotion when you asked for my advice.
As a matter of fact, I do not give advice now on any subject." * * * * *
I told this tale to MacShaughnassy.
He agreed with me that it was instructive, and said he should remember it. He said he should remember it so as to tell it to some fellows that he knew, to whom he thought the lesson should prove useful.
CHAPTER II
I can't honestly say that we made much progress at our first meeting.
It was Brown's fault.
He would begin by telling us a story about a dog.
It was the old, old story of the dog who had been in the habit of going every morning to a certain baker's shop with a penny in his mouth, in exchange for which he always received a penny bun.
One day, the baker, thinking he would not know the difference, tried to palm off upon the poor animal a ha'penny bun, whereupon the dog walked straight outside and fetched in a policeman.
Brown had heard this chestnut for the first time that afternoon, and was full of it.
It is always a mystery to me where Brown has been for the last hundred years.
He stops you in the street with,