Fate had caused his feet to stray towards something new--something
alarming. He was poised, as it were, on the brink of a gulf. Or rather,
it was as if that old mind of his, like a boat sailing hitherto briskly
before the wind, had suddenly encountered a bank of calm, of utter and
ominous calm; it was a thing spell-bound; a toy of circumstances beyond
human control. The canvas hung in the stagnant air. From which quarter
would the quickening breeze arrive? Whither would it bring him?
And his glance fell upon a slender coquettish vessel, a new-comer,
lying in the sunny harbour under the cliff. He knew it from hearsay. It
was the FLUTTERBY, van Koppen's yacht. He recollected all he had ever
heard about the millionaire; he tried to conjure up some idea of his
features and habits from gossip overheard at odd moments.
This man, he concluded, must be intelligent beyond ordinary standards.
It would be worth while making his acquaintance. America is notoriously
the land of youthful precocity. But it is not every American who, as a
stripling of fourteen summers, puzzling in callow boyish perplexity
upon the thousand ills that afflict mankind and burning with desire for
their betterment, makes a discovery in Malthusian methods destined to
convulse the trade and the social life of a continent.
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