He built a large, commodious
house, and entertained in the first style. The best families in the
neighborhood visited a man whose manner was quiet and stately, his
income larger than their own, and his house and table luxurious
without vulgar pretensions, and the red-hot gilding and glare with
which the injudicious parvenu brands himself and furniture.
The bank itself put on a new face. Twice as much glass fronted the
street, and a skylight was let into the ceiling: there were five
clerks instead of three; the new ones at much smaller salaries than
the pair that had come down from antiquity.
CHAPTER XIII.
SUCH was Mr. Hardie at twenty-five, and his townspeople said: "If he
is so wise now he is a boy, what in Heaven's name will he be at
forty?" To sixty the provincial imagination did not attempt to follow
his wisdom. He was now past thirty, and behind the scenes of his bank
was still the able financier I have sketched. But in society he seemed
another man. There his characteristics were quiet courtesy,
imperturbability, a suave but impressive manner, vast information on
current events, and no flavor whatever of the shop.
He had learned the happy art, which might be called "the barrister's
art," _hoc agendi,_ of throwing the whole man into a thing at one
time, and out of it at another. In the bank and in his own study he
was a devout worshiper of Mammon; in society, a courteous, polished,
intelligent gentleman, always ready to sift and discuss any worthy
topic you could start except finance.
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