Yet no one will deny that a multi-millionaire is a great man. What multi-millionaire was ever considered otherwise? It was the glorious environment of multi-millionaire-ism that made Josiah McNason great--and Josiah McNason was a very great man indeed. Quite apart from his connection with you and me, dear reader, as the immediate subject of this story, he was great in business, great in success, great in wealth, great in power, and more than great in his own opinion. Small wonder that he thought much of himself, seeing that thousands of people thought so much of him. Thousands of people had him on their minds, and lay awake at nights, uneasily wondering what might be his next financial “deal.” For on his little finger he balanced mighty “combines.” At his nod “companies” collapsed like card-houses, or rose up again with the aerial brilliancy of “castles in Spain,”--the pulse of Trade beat fast or slow as suited his humour,--speculators on ’Change whispered his name in accents of mingled hope and terror,--aye, even kings were known not to be averse to receiving Josiah in private audience, though they might, and did, deny the privilege to such others of their subjects whose plea was one of merit more than cash. The fact stood out very patently to both royalty and commons alike, that Josiah McNason was a man to be reckoned with,--a man to be studied and considered,--a man whose moods must be tolerated, and whose irritations must be soothed,--a man to be coaxed and coddled,--a man to whom the highest personages in the land might safely--(and even advantageously)--send presents of grouse and salmon in their seasons,--a man whom it was considered politic not to offend. But why? Why all this trouble and anxiety from Majesty itself down to toiling bank-clerks, with respect to the fits and vagaries of one puny biped, neither handsome to look at, nor pleasant to speak with, but merely, taken as nature made him, an irascible, cut-and-dry pigmy of a man, not worth either a curse or a blessing, to judge by his outward appearance? Oh well! Merely because, by speaking him fair and flatteringly, it might be easier to borrow money of him! Everyone with even a small surplus quantity of this world’s goods, knows the taste of that diplomatic bread-and-honey which is always cautiously administered by one dear friend to some other whose pockets are to be tested. Josiah got such bread-and-honey all day long. Someone was always feeding or trying to feed him with it. His appetite however was fastidious, and he seldom swallowed the cloying bait. Even when he did gulp down a large wedge of it with a distrustful smile, it did not have the effect intended. Instead of softening his financial digestion and rendering him pliable, it appeared to make him harder and tougher in mental fibre. The gleam in his cold expressionless eye bored through the soul of the would-be-borrower of cash like a gimlet, and divined his