The Fortune Hunter

The Fortune Hunter [with
accents]

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Vance #3 in our series by Louis Joseph Vance
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Title: The Fortune Hunter
Author: Louis Joseph Vance
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[Illustration: "You can be worth a million ... within a year"]
THE FORTUNE HUNTER
By
Louis Joseph Vance
Author Of "The Brass Bowl," "The Bronze Bell," Etc.
With illustrations by Arthur William Brown
1910
To George Spellvin, Esq.,
This book is cheerfully dedicated
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. FROM HIM THAT HATH NOT
II. TO HIM THAT HATH
III. INSPIRATION
IV. TRIUMPH OF MR. HOMER LITTLE JOHN

V. MARGARET'S DAUGHTER
VI. INTRODUCTION TO MISS CARPENTER
VII. A WINDOW IN RADVILLE
VIII. THE MAN OF BUSINESS IN EMBRYO
IX. SMALL BEGINNINGS
X. ROLAND BARNETTE'S FRIEND
XI. BLINKY LOCKWOOD
XII. DUNCAN'S GRUBSTAKE
XIII. THE BUSINESS MAN AND MR. BURNHAM XIV. MOSTLY
ABOUT BETTY
XV. MANOEUVRES OF JOSIE
XVI. WHERE RADVILLE FEARED TO TREAD
XVII. TRACEY'S TROUBLES
XVIII. A BARGAIN IS A BARGAIN
XIX. PROVING THE PERSIPICUITY OF MR. KELLOGG
XX. ROLAND SHOWS HIS HAND
XXI. AS OTHERS SAW HIM
XXII. ROLAND'S TRIUMPH
XXIII. THE RAINBOW'S END
ILLUSTRATIONS
"You can be worth a million ... within a year"

"You mean you're going to work here?"
"Four hundred dollars, Mr. Sheriff"
"Betty!"
"You're a thief with a reward out for you"
"Forever and ever and a day"

I
FROM HIM THAT HATH NOT
Receiver at ear, Spaulding, of Messrs. Atwater & Spaulding, importers
of motoring garments and accessories, listened to the switchboard
operator's announcement with grave attention, acknowledging it with a
toneless: "All right. Send him in." Then hooking up the desk telephone
he swung round in his chair to face the door of his private office, and in
a brief ensuing interval painstakingly ironed out of his face and attitude
every indication of the frame of mind in which he awaited his caller. It
was, as a matter of fact, anything but a pleasant one: he had a
distasteful duty to perform; but that was the last thing he designed to
become evident. Like most good business men he nursed a pet
superstition or two, and of the number of these the first was that he
must in all his dealings present an inscrutable front, like a
poker-player's: captains of industry were uniformly like that, Spaulding
understood; if they entertained emotions it was strictly in private.
Accordingly he armoured himself with a magnificent imperturbability
which at times almost deceived its wearer.
Occasionally it deceived others: notably now it bewildered Duncan as
he entered on the echo of Spaulding's "Come!" He had apprehended the
visage of a thunderstorm, with a rattle of brusque complaints: he
encountered Spaulding as he had always seemed: a little, urbane figure
with a blank face, the blanker for glasses whose lenses seemed always
to catch the light and, glaring, mask the eyes behind them; a prosperous
man of affairs, well groomed both as to body and as to mind; a machine
for the transaction of business, with all a machine's vivacity and

temperamental responsiveness. It was just that quality in him that
Duncan envied, who was vaguely impressed that, if he himself could
only imitate, however minutely, the phlegm of a machine, he might
learn to ape something of its efficiency and so, ultimately, prove
himself of some worth to the world--and, incidentally, to Nathaniel
Duncan. Thus far his spasmodic attempts to adapt to the requirements
and limitations of the world of business his own equipment of misfit
inclinations and ill-assorted abilities, had unanimously turned out
signal failures. So he envied Spaulding without particularly admiring
him.
Now the