ile his amiable hero was declared heir to a dukedom and forty
thousand a year. But this fellow Balzac knows better than that."

The days had passed when Mr. Sheldon had leisure to read Balzac. He
read nothing but the newspapers now, and in the newspapers he read very
little more than the money articles and such political news as seemed
likely to affect the money-market. There is no such soul-absorbing
pursuit as the race which men run whose goal is the glittering Temple
of Plutus. The golden apples which tempted Atalanta to slacken her pace
are always rolling _before_ the modern runner, and the greed of gain
lends the wings of Hermes to his feet. Mr. Sheldon had sighed for
pleasures sometimes in the days of his Bloomsbury martyrdom. He had sat
by his open window on sultry summer evenings, smoking his solitary
cigar, and thinking moodily of all the pleasant resting-places from
which other men were looking out at that golden western sky, deepening
into crimson and melting into purples which even the London smoke could
not obscure. He had sat alone, thinking of jovial parties lounging in
the bow-windows of Greenwich taverns, with cool green hock-glasses and
pale amber wine, and a litter of fruit and flowers on the table before
them, while the broad river flowed past them with all the glory of the
sunset on the rippling water, and one black brig standing sharply out
against the yellow sky. He had thought of Richmond, and the dashing
young men who drive there every summer in drags, with steel chain and
bar clanking and glittering in front of the team, and two solemn grooms
with folded arms seated stiff and statue-like behind. He had thought of
Epsom, and the great Derby mob; and all of those golden goblets of
pleasure which prosperous manhood drains to the very dregs. He had
fancied the enjoyments which would be his if ever he were rich enough
to pay for them. And now he was able to afford all such pleasures he
cared nothing for them; for the ecstasy of making money seemed better
than any masculine dissipation or delight. He did sometimes dine at
Greenwich. He knew the _menus_ of the different taverns by heart, and
had discovered that they were all alike vanity and indigestion; but he
never seated himself at one of those glistening little tables, or
deliberated with an obsequious waiter over the mysteries of the wine
_carte_, without a settled purpose to be served by the eating of the
dinner, and a definite good to be achieve