Mr. Bullion was not without good natural impulses, but his education and experience had been such as to develop only the sharp and selfish traits of his character.  An orphan at the age of eleven years, he was placed in a shop under the charge of a grasping, unscrupulous man, where he learned the rules of business which he followed afterwards with so much success.  The old-fashioned notions about the Golden Rule he was speedily well rid of; for when his indiscreet frankness to customers was observed, the rod taught him the folly of untimely truth-telling, if not the propriety of smoothing the way to a bargain by a glib falsehood.  With such training, he grew up an expert salesman; and before he was of age, after various changes in business, he became the confidential clerk in a large wholesale house.  Owing to unexpected reverses, the house became embarrassed, and at length failed.  The head of the firm went back to his native town a broken-hearted man, and not long afterwards died, leaving his family destitute.  But Bullion, with a junior partner, settled with the creditors, kept on with the business, and prospered.  Perhaps, if the widow had received what was rightfully hers, the juniors would have had a smaller capital to begin upon,—­Bullion knew; but the account, if there was one, was past settlement by human tribunals, and had gone upon the docket in the great Court of Review.

Wealth grows like the banian, sending down branches that take root on all sides in the thrifty soil, and then become trunks themselves, and the parents of ever-increasing boughs,—­a sturdy forest in breadth, a tree in unity.  So Bullion grew and flourished.  At the time of our story he was rich enough to satisfy any moderate ambition; but he wished to rear a colossal fortune, and the operations he was now concerned in were fortunate beyond his expectations.  But he was not satisfied.  He conceived the idea of carrying on the same stock-speculation in New York on a larger scale, and made an arrangement with one of the leading “bears” of that city; but he was careful to keep this a secret, most of all from Fletcher and others of his associates at home.  Fortune favored him, as usual, and he promised himself a success that would make him a monarch in the financial world.  Under the excitement of the moment, he had filled the baby hands of Fletcher’s child with gold pieces.  It was as Fletcher said; his head was fairly turned by the glittering prospect before him.

The associate in New York proposed to Bullion the purchase of a controlling interest in a railroad; and Bullion, believing that the depression had nearly reached its limit, and that affairs would soon take a turn, agreed that it was best now to change their policy, and to buy all the shares in this stock that should be offered while the price was low, and keep them as an investment.  He felt sure that he with the New York capitalist had now money enough to “swing” all the shares in market, and they each agreed to