a knowledge of their affairs. From that knowledge came his
wealth. That was twenty years ago. Since then giants had arisen
in the land; men whose wealth made the fortune of Stephen
Hallowell appear a comfortable competence, his schemes and
stratagems, which, in their day, had bewildered Wall Street, as
simple as the trading across the counter of a cross-roads store.
For years he had been out of it. He had lost count. Disuse and
ill health had rendered his mind feeble, made him at times
suspicious, at times childishly credulous. Without friends,
along with his physician and the butler, who was also his nurse,
he lived in the house that in 76, in a burst of vanity, he had
built on Fifth Avenue. Then the house was a "mansion," and its
front of brown sandstone the outward sign of wealth and fashion.
Now, on one side, it rubbed shoulders with the shop of a man
milliner, and across the street the houses had been torn down
and replaced by a department store. Now, instead of a sombre
jail-like facade, his outlook was a row of waxen ladies, who,
before each change of season, appeared in new and gorgeous
raiment, and, across the avenue, for his approval, smiled
continually.

"It is time you moved, Stephen," urged his friend and lawyer,
Judge Henry Gaylor. "I can get you twice as much for this lot as
you paid for both it and the house."

But Mr. Hallowell always shook his head. " Where would I go,
Henry?" he would ask. "What would I do with the money? No, I
will live in this house until I am carried out of it."

With distaste, the irritated city editors "followed up" the