Everyone harbours a dream of what he would do if Fortune suddenly lifted the lid and offered him the works. There are some who crave to be so rich that they could afford to own three motor cars and still ride a bicycle. There are others who dream of having so much money that they could habitually wear clothes that look awful but feel comfortable. Of course this is aiming at the moon. Only millionaires can afford to look like a case of delerium trimmings, or Rumbold the rat-catcher. Even then it requires a heap of courage to defy your wife's relatives and spend your days happily bringing up drum-head cabbages in the way they should grow in a suit which looks as patchy as the map of Europe.

Still, if you're rich enough you may get away with it. People will say as you flutter and flap past, “That's old McBoodle; decent old stick, but a bit eccentric.”

But if you're known to be so poor that you pay cash for everything, they will whisper: “Old So-and-So is on the rocks; has to do a bit of market-gardening on the side.”

The Poverty of Riches.

The greatest advantage of a lot of money is that it enables you to slip back to where you were before you had any. Biography is rich in millionaires to whom the sweetest reward of super-oodledom is the privilege of sitting in their own private kitchen, with their feet on the stove, smoking a short pipe and defying the tyranny of Fortune and Flunkeydom. This is the way of Ambition. It goes up with a bang and all that comes down is the stick.