‘You speak like a proud man, and a foolish one into the bargain. To say you do not value money is about as wise as to say you do not value the air you breathe; for one is almost as necessary to existence as the other. What does it matter who makes the money, or how it is made, so long as it finds its way to your pocket? Will a sovereign buy less because it was scraped out of a gutter? Is wealth one whit the less powerful though a man crawls through the dirt to win it? Let him squeeze it from the sweat and toil of his fellow men, it carries no stain of their labour. Let him cheat for it, lie for it, betray his brother or abjure his God for it, his fellow men will honour him none the less, so long as he has enough of it. The gold won on a racecourse or at a gaming-table, though broken hearts and ruined homes went along with it, has as true a ring as your honourable independence, by whatever inspiration of genius or toil of brain you may earn it.’ ‘You speak bitterly, like a man who has been accustomed to contemplate humanity “the seamy side without,”’ said Lucius coldly; ‘but be assured I have never calculated on being enriched by the fruits of your industry.’ ‘Not even upon finding yourself the inheritor of my collection?’ inquired Mr. Sivewright, his keen eyes peering into the surgeon’s face. ‘I have not even aspired to that honour,’ replied Lucius, with a somewhat contemptuous glance at the outer shell of painted canvas, inscribed with hieroglyphics, which encased the defunct Pharaoh. ‘So much the better,’ said the old man. ‘I should be sorry to think you might be disappointed by and by, when this shrunken form is clay, and you come to grope among my art treasures, thinking to find some hidden hoard—the miser’s hoard of slowly-gathered wealth which he loved too well to spend, and yet was obliged to leave behind him at the last.’ Lucius looked at the speaker curiously. The old man’s pale gray eyes shone with a vivid light; his thin tremulous hands were spread above the bedclothes, as if they had been stretched over a pile of gold, protecting it from a possible assailant. ‘Yes,’ thought Lucius, ‘I have often fancied this man must be a miser; I am sure of it now. Those words, that gesture, tell their own story. In spite of all his declarations to the contrary, he is rich, and these groundless fears spring from the thought of some concealed hoard which he feels himself powerless to protect.’ He felt some pity, but more contempt, for the subject of these thoughts, and no elation at the idea that this hoarded wealth might possibly descend to him. He did his best to soothe the old man’s excited nerves, and succeeded tolerably well. He had taken up his hat, and was on the point of hurrying off to begin his daily round—delayed considerably by the length of this interview—when Mr. Sivewright called him back. ‘Will it trouble you to return here after your day’s work?’ he asked.