After a few days, Brent strolled into one or two of his favorite clubs. They were almost deserted. Only a few fossilized members, whom nothing short of an earthquake could shake out of their favorite smoking-room seats, were to be seen. Some of them recognized Brent, and nodded to him. Nobody ever does anything more in a typical London club. Americans, some of them, have an idea that one of the objects of a club is to furnish members with the society of their fellows. Not so in London. Sit for an hour and watch the members of an English club stroll into the smoking-room one by one after dinner to enjoy their coffee, cigars, and liquor. A dozen men, perhaps, will be sitting each quite by himself at a tiny table. A newcomer enters. Half the men in the room nod to him, and he returns the salutation with as much cordiality as he thinks necessary. The other half don’t look up from their papers. But does he join one of his friends or acquaintances for a chat over the coffee? No mere good fellowship would justify such a liberty. He seeks the most secluded corner that remains unoccupied, draws a table barricade in front of him, and signals for a waiter. And if two men are inconsiderate enough to come in together with an unfinished conversation carried on above a whisper, all the other men in the room frown at the disturbers. The Englishman seeks his club for solitude, not for society. Brent was quite used to this feature of London club life, and now he rather rejoiced in it. There was just sufficient companionship in the simple presence of a few silent mortals to relieve a sense of isolation which had been oppressing him for weeks. It would not be true to say that wealth had in a few short months made of Brent a morose and disappointed man. The great problem which confronted him had proved a heavier burden than he anticipated. The anxieties of the past year had been more irksome than the pleasurable though arduous excitement of the previous months of adventure. But Brent was too young, too sanguine, and too resourceful to be cast down by the vast responsibilities which weighed more heavily upon him each day. The day after he had arranged for taking the British government loan of £20,000,000, he set about figuring up roughly his financial operations since the night he had taken John Wharton partly into his confidence nine months before. Nearly $500,000,000, about fifteen per cent of his golden store, had been used or distributed--“got rid of,” he put it, in summing up the situation to himself.