tting room and tell her that she must prepare for
another period of waiting, with almost certain disappointment at the
end?

A temperament like Galusha Bangs' is capable of soaring to the heights
and descending to the depths. Just now the elevator was going down,
and down it continued to go to the very subcellar. It was dark in that
subcellar, not a ray of light anywhere. Galusha realized now, or thought
he did, that all his great scheme for helping Martha to dispose of her
Development shares had been based upon nothing substantial, nothing but
rainbow-tinted hopes which, in turn, were based upon nothing but wishes.
Omitting the hopes and wishes, what was there left? Just what the
president of the Trumet Trust Company had told Martha and what Raish
Pulcifer, when angered into truthtelling, had told him. That is, that
the shares of the Wellmouth Development Company might be worth something
some day, but that now they were worth nothing, because no one would buy
them.

Yes... yes, that was the truth.... But how could he go down to the
sitting room and tell Martha Phipps that truth, having already told her
so much that was quite different?

If she would only let him lend her the five thousand dollars, or
whatever it was. He did not know how much Cousin Gussie was taking care
of for him at present, but there had been a large sum at the time
of Aunt Clarissa's death. He remembered that the figures had quite
frightened him then. He had not thought much about them since, because
they did not interest him. He always had enough for his needs and more
than enough, and dividends, and interests, and investments and all such
things bored him and made him nervous. But, now that he WAS interested
in an investment--Martha Phipps' investment--it brought home to him the
undisputable fact that he, Galusha Bangs, had plenty of money to lend,
if he wished to lend it.

And if Cousin Gussie, or Cousin Gussie's representatives, would let him
have it for such a purpose! Cousin Gussie always made such an unpleasant
disturbance when he expressed a desire for any of his money, asked so
many embarrassing questions as to what was to be done with it, and the
like. If he should go now and ask for five thousand dollars to lend
Martha Phipps, what...

But Martha Phipps would not accept a loan, anyway. She had told him that
very thing, and he knew her well enough by this time to know she meant
what she said.

Yet there remained the imminent and d