the stocks known as "The Randolph's" fluttered a point because of that, to
the financial world, momentous event. I inherited all of father's fortune
other than four millions, which he divided up among relatives and
charities, and took command of a business that gave me an income of two
millions and a half a year.

Once more I begged Bob to come into the firm.

"Not yet, Jim," he replied. "I've got my seat and about a hundred thousand
capital, and I want to feel that I'm free to kick my heels until I have
raked together an even million all of my own making; then I'll settle down
with you, old man, and hold my handle of the plough, and if some good girl
happens along about that time--well, then it will be 'An ivy-covered
little cot' for mine."

He laughed, and I laughed too. Bob was looked upon by all his friends as a
bad case of woman-shy. No woman, young or old, who had in any way crossed
Bob's orbit but had felt that fascination, delicious to all women, in the
presence of:

A soul by honour schooled,
A heart by passion ruled--

but he never seemed to see it. As my wife--for I had been three years
married and had two little Randolphs to show that both Katherine Blair and
I knew what marriage was for--never tired of saying, "Poor Bob! He's
woman-blind, and it looks as though he would never get his sight in that
direction."

"Then again, Jim," he continued in a tone of great seriousness, "there's a