The truth was, Chip had been playing a pretty hazardous game in the cotton-market, chiefly at the risk of other parties; and the slice he had so feloniously carved out of poor Captain Grant was quite small compared with the gains he had managed to secure by thus venturing a little of his own and a great deal of other people’s money.  The shrewd minds in the secrets of the business world were not slow to see that he must have realized at least a hundred thousand units of commercial omnipotence by the operations of the first week after the rise.  Everybody was glad of an opportunity to speak to such a man.  Even Mr. Hopkins, immensely retired as he was, driving into State Street about noon one genial day to receive a bank dividend or two, stepped considerably out of his way, in walking from his low-hung turnout to the door of one of the banks, in order to catch Mr. Dartmouth’s notice, and say to him, “Good-morning, Mr. Dartmouth!  I hope you are very well, Sir!” Chip recognized the salutation with a superb nod, but without the accompaniment of any verbal rhetoric which was audible above the buzz of the pavement; and the retired millionnaire passed on about his business.

“Ah!” thought Chip, “I am getting to be a merchant of the right sort, I see,—­and by the time he is ready to change that low-hung little chariot for the hard, angular ebony with raven plumes, I shall be ready to step into the other plump little vehicle, which is really so nice and cozy.”

But we must leave Chip to the easy task of ballooning upward in public estimation, with his well-inflated bank-account.  He was, in fact, reformed by his great commercial success to this extent, that his vices had become of the most distinguished and unvulgar grade.  He was now courted by the highest artists in iniquity, and had the means of accomplishing results that none but men who are known to be really rich can command.  He, therefore, now quitted all vulgar associations, and determined not to outrage any of the virtues, except under varnish, gilding, and polish that would keep everything perfectly respectable.  Let him trust to that as long as he can.

Don’t talk of the solitude of a night in the primeval forests, however far from the abodes of man;—­the squirrels and the partridges may be asleep then and there, but the katydids are awake, and, with the support of contralto and barytone tree-toads, manage to keep up a concert which cannot fail to impress on you a sense of familiar and friendly company.  Don’t talk of the loneliness of a deserted and ruinous castle;—­the crickets have not left it, and, if you don’t have a merry time with their shrill jokes, it will be your own fault.  But if you would have a sense of being terribly alone, come from long residence in some quiet country-home on the border of a quiet country-village, into the hurry-skurry of a strange city, just after nightfall.  Here is an infinite brick-and-stone forest, stern, angular, almost leafless.  Here