The Fortune Hunter

The Fortune Hunter [with accents]

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fortune Hunter, by Louis Joseph Vance #3 in our series by Louis Joseph Vance
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Title: The Fortune Hunter
Author: Louis Joseph Vance
Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9747] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on October 15, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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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 sight of his employer, professionally bland and capable, and with no animus to be discerned in his attitude, provided Duncan with one brief, evanescent flash of hope, one last expiring instant of dignity (tempered by his unquenchable humour) in which to face his fate. Something of the hang-dog vanished from his habit and for a little time he carried himself