he almost destroyed his eyesight in lonely study under the flicker of
tallow dips. All that had ever come to him of knowledge came in these
solitary vigils. Miry and sweating from the plough he mastered the
classics, law, chemistry, engineering; and finally emerging heavily from
the reek of Long Island fertiliser, struck with a heavy surety at
Fortune and brought her to her knees amidst a shower of gold. And all
alone he gathered it in.

On Coenties Slip his warehouse still bore the legend: "R. Tappan: Iron."
All that he had ever done he had done alone. He knew of no other way;
believed in no other way.

Plain living, plainer clothing, tireless thinking undisturbed--that had
been his childhood; and it had suited him.

Never but once had he made any concession to custom and nature, and that
was only when, desiring an heir, he was obliged to enter into human
partnership to realise the wish.

His son was what his father had made him under the iron cult of solitary
development; and now, the father, loyal in his own way to the memory of
his old friend Anthony Seagrave, meant to do his full duty toward the
orphaned grandchildren.

So it came to pass that tutors and specialists replaced Kathleen in the
schoolroom; and these ministered to the twin "poils," who were now
fretting through their thirteenth year, mad with desire for
boarding-school.

Four languages besides their own were adroitly stuffed into them; nor