s projects so
far. He was being followed financially, by a certain number of Brooklyn
politicians and financiers who had seen him succeed in small things,
taking a profit of from three to four hundred per cent, out of ten,
twenty and thirty acre flats, but for all his brilliance it had been
slow work. He was now worth between three and four hundred thousand
dollars and, for the first time in his life, was beginning to feel that
freedom in financial matters which made him think that he could do
almost anything. He had met all sorts of people, lawyers, bankers,
doctors, merchants, the "easy classes" he called them, all with a little
money to invest, and he had succeeded in luring hundreds of worth-while
people into his projects. His great dreams had never really been
realized, however, for he saw visions of a great warehouse and shipping
system to be established on Jamaica Bay, out of which he was to make
millions, if it ever came to pass, and also a magnificent summer resort
of some kind, somewhere, which was not yet clearly evolved in his mind.
His ads were scattered freely through the newspapers: his signs, or
rather the signs of his towns, scattered broadcast over Long Island.

Eugene had met him first when he was working with the Summerfield
Company, but he met him this time quite anew at the home of the W. W.
Willebrand on the North Shore of Long Island near Hempstead. He had gone
down there one Saturday afternoon at the invitation of Mrs. Willebrand,
whom he had met at another house party and with whom he had danced. She
had been pleased with his gay, vivacious manner and had asked him if he
wouldn't come. Winfield was here as a guest with his automobile.

"Oh, yes," said Winfield pleasantly. "I recall you very well. You are
now with the United Magazines Corporation,--I understand--someone was
telling me--a most prosperous company, I believe. I know Mr. Colfax very
well. I once spoke to Summerfield about you. A most astonishing fellow,
that, tremendously able. You were doing that series of sugar plantation
ads for them or having them done. I think I copied the spirit of those
things in advertising Ruritania, as you may have noticed. Well, you
certainly have improved your condition since then. I once tried to tell
Summerfield that he had an exceptional man in you, but he would have
nothing of it. He's too much of an egoist. He doesn't know how to work
with a man on equal terms."

Eugene smiled at the thought of Su