He had done all this and
more. Unlike most self-made men who remain yoked like oxen to their
sordid affairs (in harness, they aptly call it) he had been shrewd
enough to retire from business in the heyday of his age, on a
relatively modest competence of fifteen million dollars a year. He was
spending his time at present in the gratification of personal whims,
and leaving the remaining millions to be picked up by whoever cared to
take the trouble. Manifestly an unusual type of millionaire--this man
who had lived down half a century of obloquy and was now hailed, in
well-informed circles, as the saviour of his country.
Nor was this all. Van Koppen was described as a brisk, genial,
talkative old fellow, rather fat, with a clear complexion, sound teeth,
shrubby grey beard, a twang barely sufficient to authenticate his
transatlantic descent, and the digestion of a boa-constrictor. He was
tremendously fond of buttered tea-cakes--so the Duchess said; a man who,
in the words of Madame Steynlin, "really appreciated good music" and
who, as the PARROCO never ceased to declare, could be relied on to give
a handsome contribution towards the funds for supporting the poor and
repairing a decrepit parish organ.
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