millions for your stomach. On the whole, at a rough estimate you must
easily be worth over one hundred millions. There are quite a number of
old gentlemen in New York, and a good many young ones, who would gladly
pay that amount for your investments, for your securities."

The lad with eager upturned countenance did not conceal his amusement
while the man drew this picture of him as a living ragged gold-mine, as
actually put together and made up of pieces of fabulous treasure. A
child's notion of wealth is the power to pay for what it has not. The
wealth that childhood _is_, escapes childhood; it does not escape the
old. What most concerned the lad as to these priceless feet and hands
and eyes and ears was the hard-knocked-in fact that many a time he
ached throughout this reputed treasury of his being for a five-cent
piece, and these reputed millionaires, acting together and doing their
level best, could not produce one.

Nevertheless, this fresh and never-before-imagined image of his
self-riches amused him. It somehow put him over into the class of
enormously opulent things; and finding himself a little lonely on that
new landscape, he cast about for some object of comparison. Thus his
mind was led to the richest of all near-by objects.

"If I were worth a hundred million," he said, with a satisfied twinkle
in his eyes, "I would be as rich as the cathedral."

A significant silence followed. The man broke it with a grave surprised
inquiry:

"How did you happen to think of the cathedral?"