I believe that a haunting
sense of the intensifying unsoundness of his position accounts largely
for his increasing irritability and his increasing secretiveness with my
aunt and myself during these crowning years. He dreaded, I think, having
to explain, he feared our jests might pierce unwittingly to the truth.
Even in the privacy of his mind he would not face the truth. He was
accumulating unrealisable securities in his safes until they hung a
potential avalanche over the economic world. But his buying became a
fever, and his restless desire to keep it up with himself that he was
making a triumphant progress to limitless wealth gnawed deeper and
deeper. A curious feature of this time with him was his buying over and
over again of similar things. His ideas seemed to run in series. Within
a twelve-month he bought five new motor-cars, each more swift and
powerful than its predecessor, and only the repeated prompt resignation
of his chief chauffeur at each moment of danger, prevented his driving
them himself. He used them more and more.
Pages:
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468