A few moments earlier Rose Euclid had whispered to Edward Henry that Carlo Trent was the greatest dramatic poet in the world. She flowered now beneath the sun of those dark lustrous eyes and the soft rain of that admiration from the greatest dramatic poet in the world. It really did seem to Edward Henry that she grew younger. Assuredly she grew more girlish, and her voice improved. And then the bottles began to pop, and it was as though the action of uncorking wine automatically uncorked hearts also. Mr. Seven Sachs, sitting square and upright, smiled gaily at Edward Henry across the gleaming table, and raised a glass. Little Marrier, who at nearly all times had a most enthusiastic smile, did the same. In the result, five glasses met over the central bed of chrysanthemums. Edward Henry was happy. Surrounded by enigmas,--for he had no conception whatever why Rose Euclid had brought any of the three men to his table,--he was nevertheless uplifted. As he looked about him, at the rich table, and at the glittering chandelier overhead (albeit the lamps thereof were inferior to his own), and at the expanses of soft carpet, and at the silken-textured walls, and at the voluptuous curtains, and at the couple of impeccable gentlemen in waiting, and at Joseph who knew his place behind his master’s chair,--he came to the justifiable conclusion that money was a marvellous thing, and the workings of commerce mysterious and beautiful. He had invented the Five Towns Thrift Club; working men and their wives in the Five Towns were paying their two-pences, and sixpences, and shillings weekly into his Club, and finding the transaction a real convenience--and lo! he was entertaining celebrities at Wilkins’s.