Page:Robert Barr - Lord Stranleigh Philanthropist.djvu/40

 "Pshaw!" cried Garner, impatiently, "Bannerdale must be worth sixty million, if he's worth a cent."

"I daresay, but look at the unhappy man's position at the present moment. He has taken a house in Vienna that occupies a city square, and to keep away the reporters, has garrisoned it as if it were a fortress. Everyone knows he is stricken with a dangerous disease, and has come to Vienna for treatment, and we all are aware that a man in his condition needs quiet and rest; yet quiet is the one thing he can't buy. Stocks fluctuate up and down according to the rumours coming from that house of death, as it probably is, for he has been reported dead several times, and reported convalescent, and reported incurable: nobody really knows what his condition is except his physician. But to torture a very sick man in this way seems to me abominable."

J. W. Garner shrugged his shoulders indifferently.

"They've got to have the news," he said, "and anyhow I guess there ain't much sympathy for old Bannerdale in the States. He looted too many people when he was well, and I expect there's a feeling of relief now that he's deadly ill. After all, I don't believe his death will make very much