CHAPTER V.ABOUT THE SOCIAL-STAKE SYSTEM, THE DANGERS OF CONCENTRATION,.
AND OTHER MORAL AND IMMORAL CURIOSITIES.
The affairs of my father were almost as easy of settlement as those of a pauper.

In twenty-four hours I was completely master of them, and found myself if not the richest, certainly one of the richest subjects of Europe.

I say subjects, for sovereigns frequently have a way of appropriating the effects of others that would render a pretension to rivalry ridiculous.

Debts there were none: and if there had been, ready money was not wanting; the balance in cash in my favor at the bank amounted in itself to a fortune.
The reader may now suppose that I was perfectly happy.

Without a solitary claim on either my time or my estate, I was in the enjoyment of an income that materially exceeded the revenues of many reigning princes.