"
"If you'll be so good as to say these things on 'Change, I can bring an
action for libel, or get you put into a madhouse. There's no good in
saying them here."
Philip Sheldon, even in this crisis, was less agitated than his brother,
being of a harder nature, and less subject to random impulses of good or
evil. He caught his accuser by the collar of his coat, and flung him
violently from the doorway. Thus ended his visit to Gray's Inn.
Boldly as he had borne himself during the interview, he went to his
office profoundly depressed and dispirited.
"So I am to have him against me?" he said to himself. "He can do me no
real harm; but he can harass and annoy me. If he should drop any hint to
Hawkehurst?--but he'll scarcely do that. Perhaps I've ridden him a little
too roughly in the past. And yet if I'd been smoother, where would his
demands have ended? No; concession in these cases means ruin."
He shut himself in his office, and sat down to his desk to confront
his difficulties. For a long time the bark which was freighted with
Philip Sheldon's fortunes had been sailing in troubled waters. He had
been an unconscious disciple of Lord Bacon, inasmuch as the boldness
inculcated by that philosopher had been the distinguishing characteristic
of his conduct in all the operations of life. As a speculator, his
boldness had served him well. Adventures from which timid spirits shrunk
appalled had brought golden harvests to this daring gamester.
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