CHAPTER V
The affairs of my father were almost as easy of settlement as those of a pauper. In twenty-four hours I was completely master of them, and found myself if not the richest, certainly one of the richest subjects of Europe. I say subjects, for sovereigns frequently have a way of appropriating the effects of others that would render a pretension to rivalry ridiculous. Debts there were none: and if there had been, ready money was not wanting; the balance in cash in my favor at the bank amounted in itself to a fortune.
The reader may now suppose that I was perfectly happy. Without a solitary claim on either my time or my estate, I was in the enjoyment of an income that materially exceeded the revenues of many reigning princes. I had not an ex-pensive nor a vicious habit of any sort.
