"I see, Mr. Beck--you are yet an unmarried man, I believe, and without children--I foresee boundless possibilities. You may marry and found a great family; you may lay yourself out for making a fortune so great that it may prove a sensible influence on the course of events. You may bequeath to your race the tradition of good fortune and the habit of making money."
"My sons may take care of themselves," said Mr. Beck; "I want to spend money, not to save it."
It was remarkable that during all this generous outburst of vicarious enthusiasm Mr. Beck's face showed no interest whatever. He had his purpose, but it was not the purpose of Mr. Cassilis. To found a family, to become a Rothschild, to contract loans--what were these things to a man who felt strongly that he had but one life, that he wished to make the most of it, and that the world after him might get on as it could without his posthumous interference?
"Listen Mr. Beck, for one moment. Your income is £500,000 a year. You may spend on your own simple wants £5,000. Bah! a trifle--not a quarter of the interest. You save the whole; in ten years you have three millions. You are still under fifty?"
"I wish I was forty-five. You may live and work for another quarter of a century. In that time you ought to be worth twelve millions at least. Twelve millions!"
"Nearly as much as ran away and was lost when the Ile was struck," said Mr. Beck. "Hardly worth while to work for five-and-twenty years in order to save what Nature spent in three days, is it?"
What, says the proverb, is easily got is lightly regarded. This man made money so easily that he despised the slow, gradual building up of an immense fortune.
"There is nothing beyond the reach of a man with twelve millions," Mr. Cassilis went on. "He may rule the world, so long as there are poor states with vast armies who want to borrow. Why, at the present moment a man with twelve millions at his command could undertake a loan with Russia, Austria, Turkey, Italy, or Egypt. He could absolutely govern the share market; he could rule the bank rate----"
Mr. Beck interrupted, quite unmoved by these visions of greatness:
"Wal, sir, I am not ambitious, and I leave Providence to manage the nations her own way. I might meddle and muss till I busted up the whole concern; play, after all, into the hands of the devil, and have the people praying to get back to their old original Providence."