Here was a man who turned everything he laid his hands upon into gold. His life was a progress amidst riches. A truth,' say we of to-day. We all know of such men. We are ever meeting or reading about such persons who turn everything they touch into gold.
Success dogs their very footsteps.
Their life's pathway leads unerringly upwards. They cannot fail. His path did not lead unerringly upward. He starved because whenever he touched a biscuit or a ham sandwich it turned to gold. That was the whole point of the story, though the writer has to suppress it delicately, writing so near to a portrait of Lord Rothschild.