CHAPTER IV.
A DISSATISFIED SHAREHOLDER Cartwright had read the morning's letters and the _Journal of Commerce_, and finding nothing important, turned his revolving chair to the fire.
He had been forced to wait for a train at a draughty station, and his feet were cold.

His office occupied an upper floor of an old-fashioned building near the docks.

Fog from the river rolled up the street and the windows were grimed by soot, but Cartwright had not turned on the electric light.

The fire snapped cheerfully, and he lighted his pipe and looked about.
The furniture was shabby, the carpet was getting threadbare, and some of the glass in the partition that cut off the clerks' office was cracked.
Cartwright had thought about modernizing and decorating the rooms, but to do the thing properly would cost five hundred pounds, and money was scarce.

Besides, a number of the merchants who shipped goods by his boats were conservative and rather approved his keeping the parsimonious rules of the old school.
The house was old and had been at one time rich and powerful.
Cartwright's father, however, had used sailing ships too long, and Cartwright's speculations and extravagance when he took control had not mended its fortunes.