Jack was envied, thanks to Henderson.
He was lucky in whatever he touched. Without any change in his idle
habits, and with no more attention to business than formerly, money came
to him so freely that he not only had a complacent notion that he was a
favorite of fortune, but the idea of his own importance in the financial
world increased enormously, much to the amusement of Mavick, when he was
occasionally in the city, to whom he talked somewhat largely of his
operations, and who knew that he had no more comprehension of the sweep
of Henderson's schemes than a baby has of the stock exchange when he
claps his hands with delight at the click of the ticker.
His prosperity was visible. It showed in the increase of his accounts
at the Union, in his indifference to limits in the game of poker, in a
handsome pair of horses which he insisted on Edith's accepting for her
own use, in an increased scale of living at home, in the hundred ways
that a man of fashion can squander money in a luxurious city. If he did
not haunt the second-hand book-shops or the stalls of dealers in
engravings, or bring home as much bric-a-brac as he once had done, it was
because his mind was otherwise engaged; his tailor's bills were longer,
and there were more expensive lunches at the clubs, at which there was a
great deal of sage talk about stocks and combinations, and much wisdom
exhibited in regard to wines; and then there were the little suppers at
Wherry's after the theatres, which a bird could have eaten and a fish
have drunken, and only a spendthrift have paid for.
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