"Ah! because you've had a hard time. But that's nothing. I've been stony-broke myself a dozen times, and I've lived to think that these were the moments when I enjoyed my life the most. The great point is, you've shown yourself capable of an adventure. That's the spirit I like to see, and I like you the better for it. Now, my boy, I'd recommend you to get a good sleep. I've a pile of business to attend to. Later on we'll talk over your affairs, and I'll have something definite to say to you." Great is the power of wealth, greater still, perhaps, the power of reputed wealth and the willingness to distribute it. At the waving of Bundy's magic wand Arthur had become at once a person of consideration; he was the tenant of an admirable suite of rooms, waited on by obsequious bell-boys, remarked by admiring chamber-maids, even sought by adroit reporters. He was a friend of Bundy's--that was the sole explanation of the miracle--for it appeared that Bundy's star was once more in the ascendant. When, late in the afternoon, Arthur left his room and went down into the hotel lobby, it seemed to him that it hummed with the name of Bundy. A constant stream of messenger-boys sought Parlour A.; a succession of automobiles discharged at the hotel door fur-coated men with anxious eyes, all bound for the same goal; the evening papers were full of the portraits and exploits of Bundy. Opening the door of Parlour A., he had a passing glimpse of a Bundy he had never seen before--a wild-eyed, gesticulating Bundy, orating behind a barricade of books and papers to a crowded room, rushing at intervals to the telephone and shouting orders, a man glowing with ardour, on springs with energy, intoxicated with success. "I'll see you presently," he cried, and went on pouring out what appeared to be a Niagara of figures. Arthur withdrew silently, went up to his room, and ordered all the papers, from which he proceeded to inform himself on the doings of his friend. The story, divested of a vast accretion of shop-soiled adjectives, reduced itself to this--that Bundy had suddenly enrolled himself among the multi-millionaires, at least potentially.