“Answer: Well, that is an unaccountable thing.  I went into the Continental Company, and nothing would do for the people but to go in with me.  I warned them—­every man of them—­but they would go in; so I acted as their agent in procuring stock for them.  There was not a share of stock sold on any persuasion of mine.  They were mad, they were wild, for oil.  You wouldn’t have supposed there was half so much money in the town as they dug out of their old stockings to invest in oil.  I was surprised, I assure you.  Well, the Continental went up, and they had to be angry with somebody; and although I held more stock than any of them, they took a fancy that I had defrauded them, and so they came together to wreak their impotent spite on me.  That’s the sum and substance of the whole matter.

“Reporter: And that is all you have to say?

“Answer: Well, it covers the ground.  Whether I shall proceed in law against these scoundrels for maligning me, I have not determined.  I shall probably do nothing about it.  The men are poor, and even if they were rich, what good would it do me to get their money?  I’ve got money enough, and money with me can never offset a damage to character.  When they get cool and learn the facts, if they ever do learn them, they will be sorry.  They are not a bad people at heart, though I am ashamed, as their old fellow-townsman, to say that they have acted like children in this matter.  There’s a half-crazy, half-silly old doctor there by the name of Radcliffe, and an old parson by the name of Snow, whom I have helped to feed for years, who lead them into difficulty.  But they’re not a bad people, now, and I am sorry for their sake that this thing has got into the papers.  It’ll hurt the town.  They have keen badly led, inflamed over false information, and they have disgraced themselves.

“This closed the interview, and then Col.  Belcher politely showed the ‘Tattler’ reporter over his palatial abode.  ‘Taken for all in all,’ he does not expect ‘to look upon its like again.’

  “None see it but to love it,
  None name it but to praise.

“It was ‘linked sweetness long drawn out,’ and must have cost the gallant Colonel a pile of stamps.  Declining an invitation to visit the stables,—­for our new millionaire is a lover of horse-flesh, as well as the narcotic weed—­and leaving that gentleman to ’witch the world with wondrous horsemanship,’ the ‘Tattler’ reporter withdrew, ’pierced through with Envy’s venomed darts,’ and satisfied that his courtly entertainer had been ‘more sinned against than sinning.’”

Col.  Belcher read the report with genuine pleasure, and then, turning over the leaf, read upon the editorial page the following: