CHAPTER II
MR. HOMER JOHNS was in his library—a long, high room lined throughout with books. "Nothing valuable," he was fond of saying, "just a gentleman's library"—a statement which made those who kept all their books in one section of a patent bookcase feel very inferior. The long windows, hung in an old crimson satin, were in recess by the depths of the shelves, and in two of these recesses stood blue-and-yellow globes. At one end of the room a good fire was blazing, and by it, in a large arm-chair, Mr. Johns was sitting, reading the financial article in an evening paper—not because he had the least respect for the writer's opinions, but because, as he often said, he was curious to see how wrong a fellow could be who drew a salary for being right. Mr. Johns had for many years been a stock-broker, who veiled beneath the beauteous name of banker all that was insupportable to him in the former profession. But late in life he had actually become the president
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