“Bob, old fellow, I don’t consider that you are obliged to do anything. You are an immensely wealthy man--the richest in the world, I have no doubt. You have been good enough to make me your confidant and agent in all your operations of the past year. I know that in everything you have done, your object has been some general or specific benefit to others. I know that your motives in the use of money have been purer and more unselfish than those of any other man I ever met. Money may be the root of all evil, but it is not your fault that your money has not been an unmixed blessing to every one who has touched it. It may be true that some of the evils which threaten just now are traceable to the free distribution of your great store of gold. But you can face the situation with an absolutely clear conscience. You did the best you could, and everything for the best. No man can do more than that. There is no obligation upon you, legal or moral, to sacrifice yourself in the solution of this crisis.” “You are very good, Jack, to make a philanthropist of me,” interrupted Brent, smiling faintly, “but you know very well that the coat doesn’t fit, and to tell you the truth, I should be sorry if it did. There is no virtue in giving or throwing away what one doesn’t want. Neither is it any credit to a man to use money for a good purpose when he can gain nothing by devoting it to an evil one. I am in the most humiliating of all positions--that of a man unequal to his responsibilities. A fool is more to be despised than a knave,” went on the young man bitterly, “and ‘good intentions’ excuse nothing. I have got the whole country into an infernal mess through my stupid interference with the established order of things. Now I am bound to repair the mischief as far as possible, just as much as if I had deliberately wrought the same ruin.” “Nonsense, man,” responded Wharton warmly. “Your sentiments do you credit, but you’re morbidly overconscientious. And so far from being a fool or stupid, there isn’t one trained financier in a hundred that wouldn’t have made worse mistakes than yours. Of course you know it will make a big hole even in your fortune to restore the financial world to its normal condition. In fact, I don’t know how it’s to be done, though I’ve no doubt we can much improve the present situation. Let me see, you have added about five hundred million dollars to the world’s monetary supply of gold. I hope you haven’t a few hundred millions more still in reserve.” Brent had been pacing restlessly back and forth in the little cabin. He stopped suddenly at Wharton’s last words, hesitated a moment, then faced his friend, and with a gesture, half of defiance, half of despair, exclaimed: “That’s the worst of the whole accursed business, Jack. _I haven’t used a sixth part of the stuff yet!_”