At this table the conversation was difficult, not so much because there was no wit among the small company, as because there were no opportunities for the display of wit. It is necessary for wit to have something to work upon; there can be no repartee where there is no talk. It is also difficult, if you think of it, to provide conversation for an elderly gentleman, who for the greater part of his life has been more accustomed to pork and beans than to _côtelettes à la Soubise_; who has habitually consumed bad coffee with his dinner, instead of claret and champagne; who is wholly ignorant of literature; has never looked upon a good picture; and has never heard of science except in connection with railways; who was originally apprenticed to a gardener; who in early life belonged to the Primitive Methodists. He might have discoursed upon shares and corners, but on such matters not even his own wife knew anything. One is apt to imagine that the man who has rapidly made millions by playing upon the gambling spirit of the people, upon their greed, and their credulity, and their ignorance, must have moments, at least, of misgiving, perhaps of remorse. We talk of the ruined homes, the wrecks of families, the desolated hearths. Well, that is not the way in which the man who has succeeded where the rest all fail, looks at it. It is not the way in which John Haveril regards his own career. He puts it in his own way this evening at dinner. Unaccustomed to the society of the rich, Dick dropped some remark, slightly _mal à propos_, about money-making. "In Yorkshire, sir," said John Haveril, "when a man buys a horse, he buys him as he stands. It's his business to find out that animal's faults. It's the business of the owner to crack up the animal. That's trading, all the world over. The man who wins, is the man who knows. The man who loses, is the man who gambles. I have never gambled." "I thought it was all gambling." "I buy stocks which I know are going up. I buy mines when there is going to be a run upon mines. I buy land where I know there will be built a town. Other people buy because they see others buying. The world gambles all the time. Men like me, sir, do not gamble. We buy for the rise in the market, which we understand." "I know nothing, really," said Dick, abashed. "No, sir; but you know as much as anybody. I have read in an English paper that I have ruined thousands. That is not true. They have ruined themselves. They buy in a rising venture, not knowing that it has risen too high, and they sell when it falls. My secret is, that I know." "How do you know?" "That, sir, I cannot explain. Why do you sing, and play that fiddle of yours better than anybody else? It is your gift, sir. So it's mine to know."