Let it rain, let it
rain--calamities and ecstasies tipped with fire and roaring with
thunder--nothing can disturb the terrible preoccupation of the plunge from
youth to age.
* * * * *
The pavements gleam like dark mirrors. The office window lights chatter in
the gloom. An umbrella pauses. The great financier is giving directions to
his chauffeur. The directions given, the great financier stands in the
rain for a moment. His eyes look up and down the street. What does he see?
Ripples, vague and vaguer ripples, that mark his passage from the
limousine into the club.
He is wet. A servant helps him remove his coat. Then he comes to the
window and sinks into a leather chair and stares at the rain and the
umbrellas outside. The great financier has been abroad. His highly
specialized mind has been, poking among columns of figures, columns of
reports. He desired to find out if possible what conditions abroad were.
For six months the great financier closeted himself daily with other great
financiers and talked and talked and discussed and talked.
But he says nothing. It is curious. The whole world and all its marvelous
distractions seem to have resolved themselves into the curt sentence, "It
rains.
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