“I haven’t time to explain just now. I will give you a few books to read, and your eyes may be opened to certain truths that will change your whole theory of life. It is seldom that I try to make a convert to my views, but I have observed surface indications on your part that you have brains. If you have, the time has come for you to learn that you live and move and have your being at a most critical time in the world’s history. We are on the verge of great events, my boy, of great upheavals and vast changes. You will probably live to see them. I may or I may not. But whether I do or don’t will make little difference to me, or to the world. But enough of this. I must get down to the office. And you, lucky man, have the evening to yourself. What will you do with it?” “Go to hear the De Reszkes and Melba in ‘Faust,’ I think.” “Great scheme! It will do you good. It is much pleasanter watching Mephistopheles on the stage than fighting him in real life. I envy you, my boy. And to-morrow night you dine with a millionnaire. Be careful, Richard; remember Nathan Hale.” “I don’t see the point,” remarked the youth thoughtfully. “I didn’t think you would,” answered Fenton; “but don’t forget to come to me to-morrow for those books. I’ll tell you at the same time what I know about the Percy-Bartletts, if you wish. Good-night.” Fenton boarded a cable-car going down town, and Richard Stoughton strolled moodily up Broadway. “Fenton’s a curious mixture,” he muttered to himself. “I wonder what he was driving at.” CHAPTER IV. “I fear,” remarked Mrs. Percy-Bartlett, looking at Richard Stoughton with a pleased expression in her brown eyes, “that you studied the art of flattery at college and have not yet learned its worthlessness.” She had been singing a little love-song that she had recently composed, and the thrilling melody had brought a flush of pleasure to the young man’s face. Without knowing much about the science of music, he was keenly sensitive to its influence. As he stood by the piano, looking down into the smiling face of the most beautiful woman he had ever met, Richard inwardly blessed the unexpected telegram that had called Percy-Bartlett away to his club before the coffee had been served at dinner. At the time of which we write, the financial affairs of the nation were in a disturbed state; and Percy-Bartlett, like other millionnaires, felt that a great opportunity had presented itself to him for combining patriotism and prudence, by giving aid to an improvident nation at a high rate of interest. His father had followed such a course during the Civil War. Percy-Bartlett’s financial patriotism was, as it were, hereditary, and he had left the house that evening with the firm determination of offering a tithe of his fortune to his afflicted government, on gilt-edged security, to be redeemed by posterity.