check his awful rush to poverty, but without success; he was not to be stopped.
At last the furniture began to go, then the plate, then all the priceless bric-à-brac. Piece by piece it disappeared until the apartments were empty and he had squandered almost all of the $40,350 arising from the sales. The servants were paid off, the apartments relinquished, and he was beginning to know what it meant to be "on his uppers." At the banks he ascertained that the interest on his moneys amounted to $19,140.86. A week before the 23d of September, the whole million was gone, including the amounts won in Lumber and Fuel and other luckless enterprises. He still had about $17,000 of his interest money in the banks, but he had a billion pangs in his heart—the interest on his improvidence.
He found some delight in the discovery that the servants had robbed him of not less than $3,500 worth of his belongings, including the Christmas presents that he in honor could not have sold. His only encouragement came from Grant and Ripley, the lawyers. They inspired confidence in his lagging brain by urging him on to the end, promising brightness thereafter. Swearengen Jones was as mute as the mountains in which he lived. There was
