“Fads,” interposed Worcester, noting that Webster was ready with a definition and anxious to forestall him, “is a diversion of the wealthy and the only game on which Parker Brothers have no copyright. It is played similar to ‘Pit’ and ‘Bluff,’ although it is not confined to Wall Street.” “Fancies,” declaimed Johnson, “is a vivid imagination diluted with printers’ ink for the purpose of converting the skeleton in the family flat into $1,500 cash. Usually the man who has ancestors doesn’t court investigation.” “Investigation,” defined Roget, “is a popular kind of bookkeeping begun after the race is lost and the money is spent; a locking of the safe deposit doors after the deposits are safe in the cashier’s pocket. As the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, Adam, being fatherless, is the only man in Hades whom the Stygian Insurance Company would guarantee immune from the epidemic of investigation which has been transplanted from the upper to the lower world. But even Adam suffered exposure before he plucked the ‘long green’ from the fig tree.” “In England insurance is called assurance, but the name better applies to American directors, whom it assures a life of luxury. The policy holder believes insurance is a legacy, but his widow discovers it is a law suit. Life insurance is a bogie at which everybody not in a glass coffin throws a stone. It is old, tried and true: too old to notice you after you’re dead; true—to its officers; and tried—in the courts. It makes sick loans which have the effect of paralyzing the tongues of its officials or sending them to Europe in search of health.” “Knowledge is no longer power,” denied Webster; “wealth has taken its place. Even both ends of Wall Street can be made to meet. At one end is the aspiring finger of Trinity Church, pointing to the sky, and at its foot is a cemetery. At the other end is the first station on the road to Brooklyn and—another cemetery!” “Gold itself is pure,” observed Portia, LL.D.; “it becomes defiled only in passing through dirty fingers. Tainted money may be exchanged for gold that isn’t greasy at the mint and no questions asked. The filth from the bad man’s fingers doesn’t take away the value of the larcenous long green, or of the sullied silver.” “In my time,” said Tweed, “we didn’t ask whether money was tainted before we took it. There’s time enough for an investigation after the trust treasure is spent, and suspicious specie never becomes penitential pesos until after money has ceased to talk. Riches are promised to the righteous man—which we all are until the newspapers find us out. Every millionaire secured his wealth honestly with two exceptions, neither of which are noted in the newspapers.” “You know it is said,” observed Cæsar, “that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” “If that includes Cleopatra’s needle, there is still hope for the rich man,” put in Marc Antony.