Free Odd John by Olaf Stapledon Page B

which means money. And I must have money, big money. Now don't snort! We've made a good little start, but it's only a start."
    "What about 'advancing the spirit,' as you called it?"
    "That's the goal, all right; but you seem to forget I'm only a child, and very backward too, in all that really matters. I must do the things I can do before the things I can't yet do. And what I can do is to prepare—by getting ( a ) experience, ( b ) independence. See?"
    Evidently the thing had to be. But it was with grave misgiving that I agreed to act as John's financial agent; and when he insisted on indulging in various wild speculations against my advice, I began to tell myself that I had been a fool to treat him as anything but a brilliant child.
    John's financial operations did not spontaneously hold his attention as his practical inventions had done. And by now both kinds of activity were being subordinated increasingly to the study of human society and the absorbing personal contacts which came to him with adolescence. There was a certain absent-mindedness and dilatoriness about his buying and selling of stock, very exasperating to me, his agent. For though most of our common fortune was in my name, I could never bring myself to act without his consent.
    During the first six months of our speculative ventures we lost fan more than we gained. John at last woke up to the fact that if we went on this way we should lose everything. After hearing of a particularly devastating disaster he indulged in a memorable outburst. "Blast!" he said. "It means I must take this damned dull game much more seriously. And there's so much else to be done just now, far more important in the long run. I see it may be as difficult for me to beat Hom. sap . at this game as it is for Hom. sap . to beat apes at acrobatics. The human body is not equipped for the jungle, and my mind may not be equipped for the jungle of individualistic finance. But I'll get round it somehow, just as Hom. sap . got round acrobatics."
    It was characteristic of John that when he had made a serious mistake through lack of experience he never tried to conceal the fact. On this occasion he recounted with complete detachment, neither blaming nor excusing himself, how he, the intellectual superior of all men, had been tricked by a common swindler. One of his financial acquaintances had evidently guessed that the boy's interest in speculation had ulterior sources, in fact that some adult with money to invest was using him as a spy. This individual proceeded to treat John extremely well, and to "prattle to him about his ventures," anxiously pledging him to secrecy. In this way Homo superior was completely diddled by Homo sapiens . John insisted that I should put large sums of money into concerns which his friend had advocated. At first I refused; but John was blandly confident in his alleged "inside information that it's an absolute scoop," and finally I consented. I need not recount the history of these disastrous speculations. Suffice it that we lost everything that we had risked, and that John's friend disappeared.
    For some time after this disaster we refrained from speculation. John spent a good deal of his time away from home and away from his workshop also. When I asked what he had been up to, he usually said, "studying finance," but refused any further information. During this period his health began to deteriorate. His digestion, always his weakest spot, gave him some trouble, and he complained of headaches. Evidently he was leading a rather unwholesome life.
    He began to spend many of his nights away from home. His father had relatives in London, and increasingly often John was allowed to visit them. But the relatives did not for long tolerate his independence. (He disappeared every morning and returned late at night or not till the next day, and refused to give an account of his actions.) Consequently these visits had to cease. But John, meanwhile, had learnt that, in summer, he