Did he mean rashness?
Well, my nerve simply came from realizing what a fine outlook lay before the town.

It seemed to me to be bound to be a great distributing centre, also a railroad centre; that the illimitable acreage of plains-lands was bound in time to be settled on, and that thus the population would rapidly increase; which anticipations have happily come true.

My whole capital, and more, was now sunk and disposed of.

My mind at least in that respect was at rest; and it certainly looked as if the long-nursed scheme was about to be realized.

In a few years the unearned increment was at least 100 per cent.; rents also went up surprisingly, and also, alas! the taxes.
Unfortunately, within a year after completion of the building, and while I was in Caracas, Venezuela, an incendiary, a drunken gambler who had been running a "game" illicitly in one of the rooms, and who had been therefore turned out, deliberately used kerosene oil and set fire to the building.