He was birthed of the wild gold-adventure of Forty-nine. He was a
reared aristocrat and a grammar-school-trained democrat. He knew, in
his precocious immature way, the differentiations between caste and
mass; and, behind it all, he was possessed of a will of his own and of
a quiet surety of self that was incomprehensible to the three elderly
gentlemen who had been given charge of his and his destiny and who had
pledged themselves to increase his twenty millions and make a man of
him in their own composite image.

"Thank you for your kindness," Young Dick said generally to the three.
"I guess we'll get along all right. Of course, that twenty millions is
mine, and of course you've got to take care of it for me, seeing I
know nothing of business--"

"And we'll increase it for you, my boy, we'll increase it for you in
safe, conservative ways," Mr. Slocum assured him.

"No speculation," Young Dick warned. "Dad's just been lucky--I've
heard him say that times have changed and a fellow can't take the
chances everybody used to take."

From which, and from much which has already passed, it might
erroneously be inferred that Young Dick was a mean and money-grubbing
soul. On the contrary, he was at that instant entertaining secret
thoughts and plans so utterly regardless and disdainful of his twenty
millions as to place him on a par with a drunken sailor sowing the
beach with a three years' pay-day.

"I am only a boy," Young Dick went on. "But you don't know me very