ported cases of richness. I cannot
vouch for them myself.

When I speak therefore of rich people and discuss whether
they are happy, it is understood that I am merely drawing
my conclusions from the people whom I see and know.

My judgment is that the rich undergo cruel trials and
bitter tragedies of which the poor know nothing.

In the first place I find that the rich suffer perpetually
from money troubles. The poor sit snugly at home while
sterling exchange falls ten points in a day. Do they
care? Not a bit. An adverse balance of trade washes over
the nation like a flood. Who have to mop it up? The
rich. Call money rushes up to a hundred per cent, and
the poor can still sit and laugh at a ten cent moving
picture show and forget it.

But the rich are troubled by money all the time.

I know a man, for example--his name is Spugg--whose
private bank account was overdrawn last month twenty
thousand dollars. He told me so at dinner at his club,
with apologies for feeling out of sorts. He said it was
bothering him. He said he thought it rather unfair of
his bank to have called his attention to it. I could
sympathise, in a sort of way, with his feelings. My own
account was overdrawn twenty cents at the time. I knew
that if the bank began calling in overdrafts it might be
my turn next. Spugg said he supposed he'd have to telephone
his secretary in the morning to sell some bonds and cover
it. It seemed an awful thing to have to do. Poor people
are never driven to this sort of thing. I have known
cases of their having to sell a little furniture, perhaps,
but imagine having to sell the very bonds out of one's
desk. There's a bitterness about it that the poor man
can never know.

With this same man, Mr. Spugg, I have often talked of
the problem of wealth. He is a self-made man and he has
told me again and again that the wealth he has accumulated
is a mere burden to him. He says that he was much happier
when he had only the plain, simple things of life. Often
as I sit at dinner with him over a meal of nine courses,
he tells me how much he would prefer a plain bit of boiled
pork with a little mashed turnip. He says that if he had
his way he would make his dinner out of a couple of
sausages, fried with a bit of bread. I forgot what it is
that stands in his way. I have seen Spugg put aside his
glass of champagne--or his glass after he had drunk his
champagne--with an expression of something like contempt.
He says that h