The offer, however, was not made, and Miss Longworth said
nothing, but took her share of the profits and put them into the bank.
The plan of placing all one's eggs into the same basket is a good
one--until something happens to the basket! It is said that lightning
never strikes twice in the same place, and, as the small boy remarked,
'it never needed to.' In Mr. Longworth's affairs lightning struck in
three places, and in each of those strokes it hit a large basket. A new
law had been passed in one part of the world that vitally affected great
interests he held there. In another part of the world, at the same time,
there occurred a revolution, and every business in that country stopped
for the time being. In still another part of the world there had been a
commercial crisis; and, in sympathy with all these financial disasters,
the money market in London was exceedingly stringent.
Everybody wanted to sell, and nobody wished to buy. This unfortunate
combination of circumstances hit old Mr. Longworth hard. It was not that
he did not believe all his investments were secure, could he only
weather the gale, but there was an immediate need of ready money which it
seemed absolutely impossible to obtain. Day by day his daughter saw him
ageing perceptibly. She knew worry was the cause of this, and she knew
the events that were happening in different parts of the world must
seriously embarrass her father. She longed to speak to him about his
business, but one attempt she made in this direction had been very rudely
rebuffed, and she was not a woman to tempt a second repulse of that kind.
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