st, because I shall take measures
which will ensure the rejection of any such application.'

'Without discussing the question whether or not there aren't at least
half a dozen hotels in London alone that would jump for joy at the
chance of getting me,' answered Jules, 'I may tell you, sir, that I
shall retire from my profession.'

'Really! You will turn your brains to a different channel.'

'No, sir. I shall take rooms in Albemarle Street or Jermyn Street,
and just be content to be a man-about-town. I have saved some twenty
thousand pounds--a mere trifle, but sufficient for my needs, and I shall
now proceed to enjoy it. Pardon me for troubling you with my personal
affairs. And good-day again.'

That afternoon Racksole went with Felix Babylon first to a firm of
solicitors in the City, and then to a stockbroker, in order to carry out
the practical details of the purchase of the hotel.

'I mean to settle in England,' said Racksole, as they were coming back.
'It is the only country--' and he stopped.

'The only country?'

'The only country where you can invest money and spend money with
a feeling of security. In the United States there is nothing worth
spending money on, nothing to buy. In France or Italy, there is no real
security.'

'But surely you are a true American?' questioned Babylon.

'I am a true American,' said Racksole, 'but my father, who began by
being a bedmaker at an Oxford college, and ultimately made ten million
dollars out of iron in Pittsburg--my father took the wise precaution of
having me educated in England. I had my three years at Oxford, like any
son of the upper middle class! It did me good. It has been worth more
to me than many successful speculations. It taught me that the English
language is different from, and better than, the American language,
and that there is something--I haven't yet found out exactly what--in
English life that Americans will never get. Why,' he added, 'in the
United States we still bribe our judges and our newspapers. And we talk
of the eighteenth century as though it was the beginning of the world.
Yes, I shall transfer my securities to London. I shall build a house in
Park Lane, and I shall buy some immemorial country seat with a history
as long as the A. T. and S. railroad, and I shall calmly and gradually
settle down. D'you know--I am rather a good-natured man for a
millionaire, and of a social disposition, and yet I haven't six real
friends in the whole of