"Secondly, buy that sound article when the herd sells it.
"Thirdly, sell it when the herd buys it."
"Richard," said the old man, "I see what it is--you are a genius."
"No."
"It is no use your denying it, Richard."
"Common sense, sir, common sense."
"Yes, but common sense carried to such a height as you do is genius."
"Well, sir, then I own to the genius of common sense."
"I admire you, Richard--I am proud of you; but the bank has stood one
hundred and forty years, and never a genius in it;" the old man
sighed.
Hardie senior, having relieved his mind of this vague misgiving, never
returned to it--probably never felt it again. It was one of those
strange flashes that cross a mind as a meteor the sky.
The old gentleman, having little to do, talked more than heretofore,
and, like fathers, talked about his son, and, unlike sons, cried him
up at his own expense. The world is not very incredulous; above all,
it never disbelieves a man who calls himself a fool. Having then
gained the public ear by the artifice of self-depreciation, he poured
into it the praises of Hardie junior. He went about telling how he, an
old man, was all but bubbled till this young Daniel came down and
foretold all. Thus paternal garrulity combined for once with a man's
own ability to place Richard Hardie on the pinnacle of provincial
grandeur.
A few years more and Hardie senior died. (His old clerk, Skinner,
followed him a month later.)
Richard Hardie, now sole partner and proprietor, assumed a mode of
living unknown to his predecessors.
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