send to overwhelm him, and which washes him far higher than he could hope
to lift himself. So I do not here refer to any attack on me in the public
prints; I think of them only with amusement and gratitude. The story that
rankles is the one these foes of mine set creeping, like a snake under the
fallen leaves, everywhere, anywhere, unseen, without a trail. It has been
whispered into every ear--and it is, no doubt, widely believed--that I
deliberately put old Bromwell Ellersly "in a hole," and there tortured him
until he consented to try to compel his daughter to marry me.

It is possible that, if I had thought of such a devilish device, I might
have tried it--is not all fair in love? But there was no need for my
cudgeling my brains to carry that particular fortification on my way to
what I had fixed my will upon. _Bromwell Ellersly came to me of his own
accord_.

I suppose the Ellerslys must have talked me over in the family circle.
However this may be, my acquaintance with her father began with Sam's
asking me to lunch with him. "The governor has heard me talk of you so
much," said he, "that he is anxious to meet you."

I found him a dried-up, conventional old gentleman, very proud of his
ancestors, none of whom I had ever heard of, and very positive that a great
deal of deference was due him--though on what grounds I could not then,
and can not now, make out. I soon discovered that it was the scent of my
stock-tip generosity, wafted to him by Sammy, that had put him hot upon my
trail. I hadn't gone far into his affairs before I learned that he had been
speculating, mortgaging, kiting notes, doing what he called, and thought,
"business" on a large scale. He regarded business as beneath the dignity
and the intellect of a "gentleman"--how my gorge does rise at that word! So
he put his great mind on it only for a few hours now and then; he reserved