They were few in number, all capitalists, and co-operators with his father; and they were pleased with something in the young man's manner. All except one could easily spare the money; and to him Vane, with the consent of the other creditors, gave his dividend of seventy per cent., and received his acquittances in full. And that night the other creditors, at a directors' dinner, agreed that, while they had done a very foolish thing, they were anxious to see what young Vane would make of it. Young Vane took two small rooms in the oldest house of a down-town street, for which he paid two dollars a week. And that autumn, Vane, who a few months before had barely admitted that the name Bellefontaine had a civilized sound, might have been seen riding on the cow-catcher of a locomotive in Northern Wisconsin, and estimating the probable earnings from freight when the forests about him were cut. When he got his father's affairs into such shape that they could be managed from New York, he procured a clerkship in a banking-house in that city at six hundred dollars salary. And then for a year, his life was monotonous routine without a day's rest. He rose at seven, prepared his own breakfast of bread and fruit, and was at the bank before nine. He lunched on a sandwich; left the bank at five, and walked to the Park and back. At seven he dined on a steak and a pint of ale. And such of his evenings as were not occupied with the care of his father's estate, this practical young man of business gave, not to newspapers and stock reports, but to mediæval history and Italian poetry. It was his safety valve. He sometimes thought of writing a book on the social and political history of the Florentine republic. He steadily refused all invitations of his capitalist friends to dinner or other entertainments. He could now live with two suits of clothes, and, to accept their invitations, he would need three; moreover, he secretly feared that he could not bear his present mode of life if he had even a glimpse of any other. Only while alone could he forget that he was alone in the world. John, who was in the same banking-house, was the only man he knew; and many an evening John left a dinner, or was late at a party, that he might sit for an hour in the little back room in Washington Place.