Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/370

 business luncheons over the world—the prompt, the ready, the ubiquitous, for business needs. He had called the concern "The Great Consolidated Restaurant;" and it was to disperse or swallow up all other and rival concerns of the same kind, and eventually girdle the earth with countless and continuous lines of luncheon bars, accessibly at hand to even the most hurried business man, he himself, as general manager, being seated in the central pivot, with cross-electrical connection, to supply and control instantaneously every individual bar and station. I was just in time, he added, with friendly eagerness, to secure a large share allotment, which a cash-down payment on my part would make free to me of the immediately expected high premium.

I turned impatiently away from the incurable old schemer, and, bidding him a rather curt adieu, had, in the next second, regained a place in the passing rank, and had soon tramped myself safe beyond sight and hearing of my enemy. But my last glance at poor Bullings' crestfallen and woebegone face, as I turned upon him thus, clung to my memory and conscience. Poor old fellow! Thrown off, perhaps, by every one else, I might have seemed to him, for just the fleeting moment, the one sole remaining friend to help him up again from the very dust. And after all, thought I, the too forgetful world owes something to Bullings, whose great schemes still stand and flourish, although he himself has tumbled down. I will confess it, that, on reaching my house, my very first act was to write out a cheque for Bullings, for the deposit upon the proposed allotment of shares. The cheque too might prove the more gratifying to