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Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924

"Chance"


interest on all deposits. And you didn't want necessarily to belong to
the well-to-do classes in order to participate in the advantages of
virtue. If you had but a spare sixpence in the world and went and gave
it to de Barral it was Thrift! It's quite likely that he himself
believed it. He must have. It's inconceivable that he alone should
stand out against the infatuation of the whole world. He hadn't enough
intelligence for that. But to look at him one couldn't tell . . . "
"You did see him then?" I said with some curiosity.
"I did. Strange, isn't it? It was only once, but as I sat with the
distressed Fyne who had suddenly resuscitated his name buried in my
memory with other dead labels of the past, I may say I saw him again, I
saw him with great vividness of recollection, as he appeared in the days
of his glory or splendour. No! Neither of these words will fit his
success. There was never any glory or splendour about that figure. Well,
let us say in the days when he was, according to the majority of the
daily press, a financial force working for the improvement of the
character of the people.


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