"That was all very well to say, but he was an abstemious man; ate and drank very sparingly. He took his chief pleasure talking to his friends. He liked to talk to young men. Young men with ideas. Latterly almost the whole of his business consisted of his putting up capital to help young men float their ideas. When anybody praised him for it he'd turn it off by saying: 'Most profitable business in the world, my dear sir. Only make sure that they are ideas. Most men with money are more afraid of ideas than they are of spotted snakes; consequently ideas are to be had cheap.'
"He had his little peculiarities, as everybody knows. He was all for new ideas, but he hated to have new things around him. To the day of his death he and Mrs. Greenfield still took their airings behind a spanking team.
