Not
even the magnetism of his spectacles could conceal it.
Perhaps I had been forgetting something, whether the
Bulgarian element or not.
I compromised at ten dollars till Saturday.
"The Slav," said Ellesworth, as he pocketed the money,
"is peculiar. He never forgets."
"What are you doing now?" I asked him. "Are you still
in insurance?" I had a vague recollection of him as
employed in that business.
"No," he answered. "I gave it up. I didn't like the
outlook. It was too narrow. The atmosphere cramped me.
I want," he said, "a bigger horizon."
"Quite so," I answered quietly. I had known men before
who had lost their jobs. It is generally the cramping of
the atmosphere that does it. Some of them can use up a
tremendous lot of horizon.
"At present," Ellesworth went on, "I am in finance. I'm
promoting companies."
"Oh, yes," I said. I had seen companies promoted before.
"Just now," continued Ellesworth, "I'm working on a thing
that I think will be rather a big thing. I shouldn't want
it talked about outside, but it's a matter of taking hold
of the cod fisheries of the Grand Banks,--practically
amalgamating them--and perhaps combining with them the
entire herring output, and the whole of the sardine catch
of the Mediterranean.
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