Alpha Book

Brought up to know what money means,
he is not easily carried away by enthusiastic reports. He knows that
when the hour of fortune is at hand no price is too great to pay for
ready capital, but he understands that when the great rush for success
begins the psychological moment of finance is already passed. When he
dies, if such strength as his can yield to death, he will die the
richest man in Italy, and he will leave what is rare in Italian finance,
a stainless name.
Of one person more I must speak, who has played a part in this family
history. The melancholy Spicca still lives his lonely life in the midst
of the social world. He affects to be a little old-fashioned in his
dress. His tall thin body stoops ominously and his cadaverous face is
more grave and ascetic than ever. He is said to have been suffering from
a mortal disease these fifteen years, but still he goes everywhere,
reads everything and knows every one. He is between sixty and seventy
years old, but no one knows his precise age.


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