Mrs. Waring’s face brightened.  Sounds of mad revelry came down from the floor above.

CHAPTER II

MR. LANGMAID’S MISSION

I

Looking back over an extraordinary career, it is interesting to attempt to fix the time when a name becomes a talisman, and passes current for power.  This is peculiarly difficult in the case of Eldon Parr.  Like many notable men before him, nobody but Mr. Parr himself suspected his future greatness, and he kept the secret.  But if we are to search what is now ancient history for a turning-point, perhaps we should find it in the sudden acquisition by him of the property of Mr. Bentley.

The transaction was a simple one.  Those were the days when gentlemen, as matters of courtesy, put their names on other gentlemen’s notes; and modern financiers, while they might be sorry for Mr. Bentley, would probably be unanimous in the opinion that he was foolish to write on the back of Thomas Garrett’s.  Mr. Parr was then, as now, a business man, and could scarcely be expected to introduce philanthropy into finance.  Such had been Mr. Bentley’s unfortunate practice.  And it had so happened, a few years before, for the accommodation of some young men of his acquaintance that he had invested rather generously in Grantham mining stock at twenty-five cents a share, and had promptly forgotten the transaction.  To cut a long story short, in addition to Mr. Bentley’s house and other effects, Mr. Parr became the owner of the Grantham stock, which not long after went to one hundred dollars.  The reader may do the figuring.

Where was some talk at this time, but many things had happened since.  For example, Mr. Parr had given away great sums in charity.  And it may likewise be added in his favour that Mr. Bentley was glad to be rid of his fortune.  He had said so.  He deeded his pew back to St. John’s, and protesting to his friends that he was not unhappy, he disappeared from the sight of all save a few.  The rising waters of Prosperity closed over him.  But Eliza Preston, now Mrs. Parr, was one of those who were never to behold him again,—­in this world, at least.

She was another conspicuous triumph in that career we are depicting.  Gradual indeed had been the ascent from the sweeping out of a store to the marrying of a Preston, but none the less sure inevitable.  For many years after this event, Eldon Parr lived modestly in what was known as a “stone-front” house in Ransome Street, set well above the sidewalk, with a long flight of yellow stone steps leading to it; steps scrubbed with Sapoho twice a week by a negro in rubber boots.  There was a stable with a tarred roof in the rear, to be discerned beyond the conventional side lawn that was broken into by the bay window of the dining-room.  There, in that house, his two children were born:  there, within those inartistic