I can always have
it to say that I was absolutely and unquestionably worth a million
dollars, once, for ten days.
A year ago my esteemed and in every way estimable old millionaire
partner, Higbie, wrote me from an obscure little mining camp in
California that after nine or ten years of buffetings and hard striving,
he was at last in a position where he could command twenty-five hundred
dollars, and said he meant to go into the fruit business in a modest way.
How such a thought would have insulted him the night we lay in our cabin
planning European trips and brown stone houses on Russian Hill!
CHAPTER XLII.
What to do next?
It was a momentous question. I had gone out into the world to shift for
myself, at the age of thirteen (for my father had endorsed for friends;
and although he left us a sumptuous legacy of pride in his fine Virginian
stock and its national distinction, I presently found that I could not
live on that alone without occasional bread to wash it down with). I had
gained a livelihood in various vocations, but had not dazzled anybody
with my successes; still the list was before me, and the amplest liberty
in the matter of choosing, provided I wanted to work--which I did not,
after being so wealthy. I had once been a grocery clerk, for one day,
but had consumed so much sugar in that time that I was relieved from
further duty by the proprietor; said he wanted me outside, so that he
could have my custom.
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