As he sat at his desk late that afternoon in his office looking out
into Third Street, where a hurrying of brokers, messengers, and
anxious depositors still maintained, he had the feeling that so far as
Philadelphia and the life here was concerned, his day and its day with
him was over. He did not care anything about the brokerage business here
any more or anywhere. Failures such as this, and disasters such as the
Chicago fire, that had overtaken him two years before, had cured him of
all love of the stock exchange and all feeling for Philadelphia. He had
been very unhappy here in spite of all his previous happiness; and
his experience as a convict had made, him, he could see quite plainly,
unacceptable to the element with whom he had once hoped to associate.
There was nothing else to do, now that he had reestablished himself as
a Philadelphia business man and been pardoned for an offense which
he hoped to make people believe he had never committed, but to leave
Philadelphia to seek a new world.
"If I get out of this safely," he said to himself, "this is the end. I
am going West, and going into some other line of business.
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