Section 51Nelse Ackerman’s home was far out in the suburbs of thecity, upon a knoll surroundedby forest. It was a couple of milesfrom the nearest trolley line, which forced Peter to take a hotwalk in the sun. Apparently the great banker, in selecting the siteof his residence, had never once thought that anybody might want toget to it without anautomobile. Peter reflected as he walked thatif he continued to move in these higher circles, he too would haveto join the motor-driving class.
About the estate there ran a great bronze fence, ten feet high,with sharp, inhospitable spikes pointing outwards. Peter had readabout this fence a long time ago in the American City“Times”; it was so and so many thousand yards long, andhad so and so many spikes, and had cost so and so many tens ofthousands o
