Page:Roy Norton--The unknown Mr Kent.djvu/11



HERE are just three sorts of men in this world who have an ambition that is worth a cuss! Hermits, billionaires, and burglars; and all they ask is to be left alone," declared John Rhodes on the day when, with painstaking attention to details, he took the last precautions to obliterate his footsteps and disappeared. He might have added, "I'm one of 'em," and if the inquisitive had asked which one, would probably have answered, "Burglar."

Furthermore, there were numerous financiers over different sections of the globe who would have agreed with him heartily, perhaps vociferously. Not that the methods by which, with amazing and cumulative steadiness, he had acquired his vast fortune were more reprehensive than those of other financiers; but because he was endowed with such appalling foresight, steadiness of nerve, and ingenuity of resource that it