but which, in the end, would triumph over the disasters of life and time.
It was all deliberate in the main intention and plan. Any failures that
exist in the book are due to the faults of the author, and to nothing
else.

Some critics have been good enough to call 'The Money Master' a beautiful
book, and there are many who said that it was real, true, and faithful.
Personally I think it is real and true, and as time goes on, and we get
older, that is what seems to matter to those who love life and wish to
see it well harvested.

I do not know what the future of the book may be; what the future of any
work of mine will be; but I can say this, that no one has had the
pleasure in reading my books which I have had in making them. They have
been ground out of the raw material of the soul. I have a hope that they
will outlast my brief day, but, in any case, it will not matter. They
have given me a chance of showing to the world life as I have seen it,
and indirectly, and perhaps indistinctly, my own ideas of that life.
'The Money Master' is a vivid and somewhat emotional part of it.




EPOCH THE FIRST

CHAPTER I

THE GRAND TOUR OF JEAN JACQUES BARBILLE

"Peace and plenty, peace and plenty"--that was the phrase M. Jean Jacques