fortune that he was not required at the bank that morning. The
luxury of another hour of sleep seemed the greatest perquisite of
wealth. His morning mail amused him at first, for since the
newspapers had published his prosperity to the world he was
deluged with letters. Requests for public or private charity were
abundant, but most of his correspondents were generous and thought
only of his own good. For three days he was in a hopeless state of
bewilderment. He was visited by reporters, photographers, and
ingenious strangers who benevolently offered to invest his money
in enterprises with certified futures. When he was not engaged in
declining a gold mine in Colorado, worth five million dollars,
marked down to four hundred and fifty, he was avoiding a guileless
inventor who offered to sacrifice the secrets of a marvelous
device for three hundred dollars, or denying the report that he
had been tendered the presidency of the First National Bank.

Oliver Harrison stirred him out early one morning and, while the
sleepy millionaire was rubbing his eyes and still dodging the
bombshell that a dream anarchist had hurled from the pinnacle of a
bedpost, urged him in excited, confidential tones to take time by
the forelock and prepare for possible breach of promise suits.
Brewster sat on the edge of the bed and listened to diabolical
stories of how conscienceless females had fleeced innocent and
even godly men of wealth. From the bathroom, between splashes, he
retained Harrison by the year, month, day and hour, to stand
between him and blackmail.

The directors of the bank met and adopted resolutions lamenting
the death of their late president, passed the leadership on to the
first vice-president and speedily adjourned. The question of