This is book-learning. It is the sort of wisdom
you and I have outgrown these forty years. Why, at his age I was
choke-full of maxims. They are good things to read; but act proverbs,
and into the Gazette you go. My faith in any general position has
melted away with the snow of my seventy winters."
"What, then, if it was established that all adders bite, would you
refuse to believe his adder would bite you, sir?"
"Dick, if a single adder bit me, it would go farther to convince me
that the next adder would bite me too than if fifty young Buffons told
me all adders bite."
The senile youth was disconcerted for a single moment. He hesitated.
The keys that the old man had himself said would unlock his judgment
lay beside him on the table. He could not help glancing slyly at them,
but he would not use them before their turn. His mind was methodical.
His will was strong in all things. He put his hand in his side-pocket,
and drew out a quantity of papers neatly arranged, tied, and indorsed.
The old men instantly bestowed a more watchful sort of attention on
him.
"This, gentlemen, is a list of the joint-stock companies created last
year. What do you suppose is their number?"
"Fifty, I'll be bound, Mr. Richard."
"More than that, Skinner. Say eighty."
"Two hundred and forty-three, gentlemen. Of these some were
stillborn, but the majority hold the market. The capital proposed to
be subscribed on the sum total is two hundred and forty-eight
millions.
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