A merely decent and self-respecting return of the
hospitalities they accepted, a carriage and pair and two saddle horses and
the servants to look after them--these items accounted for the increase.
They looked upon this as really necessary expenditure and soon would have
found that curtailment involved genuine deprivation. From the very
beginning each step in expansion made the next logical and inevitable, made
the plea of necessity seem valid.
An aunt of Marian's died, leaving her a "small" house--worth perhaps a
quarter of a million--near the Avenue in Sixty-fifth Street, and eighty
thousand in cash. About the same time Stokely told Howard of a fine
speculative opportunity in certain copper properties. Howard hesitated. He
knew that the way of speculation was the way of bondage for his newspaper
and for him. But this particular adventure seemed harmless and he yielded.
The money was invested and within a few months was producing an income of
fifteen thousand a year which promised to be steady. Howard's ownership of
stock in the paper increased; and as the profits advanced swiftly with its
swift growth in its illustrated form, his own income was nearly fifty
thousand a year. They were growing very rich. There was no longer the
slightest anxiety as to money in his mind.
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