"Had it not been for Mr. Griffin you might have been an ordinary street Arab. He sent you to a business college after you had finished the public schools, and then he took you into his office and started you on a business career. "You showed great promise, and Mr. Griffin was delighted and advanced you rapidly. You seemed to know the meaning of gratitude and worked hard. You were ambitious, too--always said that some day you would be worth a million dollars. "Step by step, you went up the ladder. Then it happened that your cousin, George Lerton, obtained a position in the same office after his father's death. He had had the advantage of a college education and knew how to handle himself in the presence of other men, and yet you, after your early struggle and with an inferior education and inferior opportunities, easily outdistanced him. "Other men began talking about you as a coming man--bankers and brokers, business men and financiers. Mr. Griffin finally gave you the post of chief clerk and adviser. You worked hard and seemed to be loyal and faithful. You got profits for your employer where other men would have caused losses. So he let you more and more into his confidence. "You got to know the secrets of big deals, the inside facts of the country's finance. You spoke in millions, but got only a nice salary. Your ambition to be worth a million dollars seemed to be not susceptible of gratification. Yet you saved money, and took advantage of small, solid investments now and then. "After a while you met a girl and fell in love with her. She was the sort who wished wealth above all, and you soon found that out. You became engaged to her, however. Then a rival appeared in the field, a wealthier man. You realized that the girl was shallow in that she favored the man with more money, but you were so infatuated that you overlooked that. You wanted the girl and, to get her, you had to have more money. "Then you began to feel dissatisfied. You didn't want to grow gradually, as other men did. You wanted the foundation for a fortune--enough to use in a plunge in the market. You wanted to be rich as soon as possible. "You began to think, perhaps, that you were not getting ahead. You worked in an atmosphere of wealth, you heard men speak in terms of millions, while you had less than ten thousand dollars in the bank. You began to think that Mr. Griffin should do more for you, that he had not done enough. You forgot that he had picked you up and made you what you were, that you had so much more than other men who had not been equally fortunate in finding a sponsor." She ceased speaking for a moment, but Sidney Prale never took his eyes from her face. Be ungrateful to Griffin? He never had dreamed of that! He always had worshiped Griffin for what the broker had done for him; he realized what he might have been only for Griffin. But he had promised not to interrupt, and so he said nothing, merely waited for Kate Gilbert to continue her recital.