Governor Pownal, whose taste for social enjoyment was very much in accord
with his own. In England, he attended the funeral of George the Second,
and saw the coronation of George the Third, little thinking the while that
he would some day make violent efforts to snatch from that crown its
brightest jewel.

When young Hancock was twenty-seven, the uncle died, and left to him his
entire fortune of three hundred fifty thousand dollars. It made him one of
the very richest men in the Colony--for at that time there was not a man
in Massachusetts worth half a million dollars.

The jingling silver in his pocket when sent to Harvard had severely tested
his moral fiber, but this great fortune came near smothering all his
native commonsense. If a man makes his money himself, he stands a certain
chance of growing as the pile grows.

There is little doubt as to the soundness of Emerson's epigram, that what
you put into his chest you take out of the man. More than this, when a man
gradually accumulates wealth, it attracts little attention, so the mob
that follows the newly rich never really gets on to the scent. And besides
that, the man who makes his own fortune always stands ready to repel
boarders.

There may be young men of twenty-seven who are men grown, and no doubt
every man of twenty-seven is very sure that he is one of these; but the
thought that man is mortal never occurs to either men or women until they
are past thirty. The blood is warm, conquest lies before, and to seize the
world by the tail and snap its head off seems both easy and desirable.

The promoters, the flatterers and friends until then unknown flocked to