On this particular autumn afternoon, as I went forth to my brougham for a roll to my apartments, the accountant placed in my hands a statement which I’d asked for and which with particular exactitude set forth my business standing. I remember it exceeding well. As I trundled up-town that golden afternoon, I glanced at those additions and subtractions which told my opulent story. Briefly, my liabilities were ninety thousand dollars; and I was rich in assets to a money value of three hundred and twelve thousand dollars. The ninety thousand was or would be owing on my tobacco contracts south, and held those tons on tons of stored, mildewed war tobacco, solid to my command. As I read the totals and reviewed the items, I would not have paid a penny of premium to insure my future. There it was in black and white. I knew what I had done; I knew what I could do. I was master of the tobacco situation for the next three years to come. By that time, I would have worked up the entire fragrant stock of leaf exempt from the tax; also by that time, I would count my personal fortune at a shadow over three millions. There was nothing surer beneath the sun. At twenty-six I would retire from trade and its troubles; life would lie at my toe like a kick-ball, and I would own both the wealth and the supple youth to pursue it into every nook and corner of pleasurable experience. Thus ran my smug reflections as I rolled northward along Fifth avenue to dress for dinner on that bright October day. It was the next afternoon, and I had concluded a pleasant lunch in my private office when Mike, my personal and favorite henchman, announced a visitor. The caller desired to see me on a subject both important and urgent. “Show him in!” I said. There slouched into the room an awkward-seeming man of middle age; not poor, but roughly dressed. No one would have called him a fop; his clothes, far astern of the style, fitted vilely; while his head, never beautiful, was made uglier with a shock of rudely exuberant hair and a stubby beard like pig’s bristles. It was an hour when there still remained among us, savages who oiled their hair; this creature was one; and I remember how the collar of his rusty surtout shone like glass with the dripped grease. My ill-favored visitor accepted the chair Mike placed for him and perched uneasily on its edge. When we were alone, I brought him and his business to instant bay. I was anxious to free myself of his presence. His bear’s grease and jaded appearance bred a distaste of him. “What is it you want?” My tones were brittle and sharp. The uncouth caller leered at me with a fashion of rancid leer--I suppose even a leer may have a flavor. Then he opened with obscure craft--vaguely, foggily. He wanted to purchase half my business. He would take an account of stock; give me exact money for one-half its value; besides, he would pay me a bonus of fifty thousand dollars.