trouble for the rest of your life. It's
a wonderful feeling, that, Dick. Half the men you meet in life admit
that they have their fits of depression, their dark days, their
anxieties. If you analyse these, you will find that nearly every one
of them is financial. The man who is free from all financial cares for
himself and his family should walk about with a song on his lips the
whole of the day. You and I are in that position, Dick, and don't let
us forget it."

Dauncey drew in a deep breath of realisation, and his face for a
moment glowed.

"Jacob," he confided, "I don't feel that I could ever be unhappy
again. I have what I always dreamed of--Nora and the kids and freedom
from anxiety. But you--where will life lead you, I wonder? I have
reached the summit of my ambitions. I'm giddy with the pleasure of it.
But you--it would be horrible if you, with all your money, were to
miss happiness."

Jacob smiled confidently.

"My dear Dick," he said, "I am happy--not because I have twelve suits
of clothes coming home from Savile Row to-day, not because of this
Rolls-Royce car, my little flat at the Milan Court, my cottage at
Marlingden, with Harris there for gardener now, and Mrs. Harris with
not a worry in the world except how to make me comfortable. I am happy
not because of all these things, but because you and I together are
going to test life. I have the master key to the locked chambers. I am
ready for adventures."

"I have about as much imagination as an owl," Dauncey sighed.

Jacob's eyes were fixed upon the haze which hung over the city.

"When I speak of adventures," he went on, "I do not mean the
adventures of romance. I mean rather the adventures of the pavement.
Human beings interest me, Dick. I like to see them come and go, study
their purposes, analyse their motives, help them if they deserve help,
stand in their way if they seek evil. These are the day-by-day
adventures possible to the man who is free from care, and who mixes
without hindrance with his fellows."

"I begin to understand," Dauncey admitted, "but I still don't quite
see by what means you are sure of coming into touch with interesting
people."

Jacob knocked the ash from his cigar.

"Dick," he said, with a twinkle in his eyes, "you are a very
superficial student of humanity. A story such as mine attracts the
imagination of the public. Every greedy adventurer in the world
believes that the person who has acquired wealth without indivi