But the rich are troubled by money all the time.

I know a man, for example—­his name is Spugg—­whose private bank account was overdrawn last month twenty thousand dollars.  He told me so at dinner at his club, with apologies for feeling out of sorts.  He said it was bothering him.  He said he thought it rather unfair of his bank to have called his attention to it.  I could sympathise, in a sort of way, with his feelings.  My own account was overdrawn twenty cents at the time.  I knew that if the bank began calling in overdrafts it might be my turn next.  Spugg said he supposed he’d have to telephone his secretary in the morning to sell some bonds and cover it.  It seemed an awful thing to have to do.  Poor people are never driven to this sort of thing.  I have known cases of their having to sell a little furniture, perhaps, but imagine having to sell the very bonds out of one’s desk.  There’s a bitterness about it that the poor man can never know.

With this same man, Mr. Spugg, I have often talked of the problem of wealth.  He is a self-made man and he has told me again and again that the wealth he has accumulated is a mere burden to him.  He says that he was much happier when he had only the plain, simple things of life.  Often as I sit at dinner with him over a meal of nine courses, he tells me how much he would prefer a plain bit of boiled pork with a little mashed turnip.  He says that if he had his way he would make his dinner out of a couple of sausages, fried with a bit of bread.  I forgot what it is that stands in his way.  I have seen Spugg put aside his glass of champagne—­or his glass after he had drunk his champagne—­with an expression of something like contempt.  He says that he remembers a running creek at the back of his father’s farm where he used to lie at full length upon the grass and drink his fill.  Champagne, he says, never tasted like that.  I have suggested that he should lie on his stomach on the floor of the club and drink a saucerful of soda water.  But he won’t.

I know well that my friend Spugg would be glad to be rid of his wealth altogether, if such a thing were possible.  Till I understood about these things, I always imagined that wealth could be given away.  It appears that it cannot.  It is a burden that one must carry.  Wealth, if one has enough of it, becomes a form of social service.  One regards it as a means of doing good to the world, of helping to brighten the lives of others—­in a word, a solemn trust.  Spugg has often talked with me so long and so late on this topic—­the duty of brightening the lives of others—­that the waiter who held blue flames for his cigarettes fell asleep against a door post, and the chauffeur outside froze to the seat of his motor.

Spugg’s wealth, I say, he regards as a solemn trust.  I have often asked him why he didn’t give it, for example, to a college.  But he tells me that unfortunately he is not a college man.  I have called his attention to the need of further pensions for college professors; after all that Mr. Carnegie and others have done, there are still thousands and thousands of old professors of thirty-five and even forty, working away day after day and getting nothing but what they earn themselves, and with no provision beyond the age of eighty-five.  But Mr. Spugg says that these men are the nation’s heroes.  Their work is its own reward.