ht by your side.'

'No. Who is it?'

'That's Hiram Meeker.'

'You don't say so!'

He pauses, and lets the individual alluded to pass, that he may take a
good look at him.

'I would like to have some of his cash, anyhow. What do you suppose he
is worth?'

'Oh, there is no telling; he is variously estimated at from five to ten
millions, but nobody knows. Started without a penny, as clerk in a
ship-chandler's store.'

Yes, reader, that _is_ Hiram. [We shall continue our familiarity, and
call him, when we see fit, by his first name.] That is our old
acquaintance Hiram Meeker, who commenced at Hampton, with Benjamin
Jessup--Hiram Meeker of Burnsville, now the great Hiram Meeker of New
York.

We have devoted a large part of this volume to Hiram's early career,
going into the minutiae of his education, his religious training, and his
business life. This was not without design. For the reader, once in
possession of these circumstances, had no need to be informed in detail
of the achievements of those years in which Hiram worked vigorously on
through successive stages in his career, while his heart grew hard as
the nether millstone.

As you see him now, pursuing his way along the street, he has really but
one single absorbing idea--ACQUISITION. True, he clings to his
belief in the importance of church membership. He has long been the
leading vestryman at St. Jude's. He is the friend and adviser of the
Bishop.

Famous is Hiram Meeker the millionaire!

Famous is Hiram Meeker the Churchman!

Still, I repeat, he has but one thought--one all-absorbing,
all-engrossing passion.

You have not forgotten, I am sure, the early calculating policy of
Hiram, and to what degree he had carried it when we took leave of him.
Imagine this developed and intensified day by day, month by month, and
year by year, over more than a quarter of a century.

Since we first made his acquaintance, he has kept on rigidly. In all his
intercourse with his fellow beings--man to man--with high and low--with
the sex--with his nearest relations,--he has never, no, _never_ looked
to anything except what he considered his personal advantage. He is a
member of the Church; he performs certain rites and formulae of our holy
religion; he subscribes to charities: but it is to secure to himself
personally the benefit of heaven and whatever advantages may be
connected with it. So that, where he has acted wisely and well, the
action has been robbed of all