“I would have said very different,” replied Conall. “It would be certain to pay. Why not?”
“Because there would be no returns,” laughed Ian, and then Conall laughed also, and wished that Boris had been there to learn whatever Ian might teach him.
“Hast thou speculated in railway stock yet,” he asked.
“No, sir. I have not had the money to do so.”
“How would thou buy if thou had?”
“I would buy when no one else was buying, and when everyone else was buying, I would keep cool, and sell. A very old and clever speculator gave me that advice as a steady rule, saying it was ‘his only guide.’”
This was the tenor of the men’s conversation until near midnight, and then Ragnor went with Ian to the door of his room and bid him a frank and friendly good night. And as he stood a moment handfast with the youth, his conscience troubled him a little and he said: “Ian, Ian, thou art a wise lad about this world’s business, but thou must not be forgetting that there is another world after this.”
“I do not forget that, sir.”
“Bishop Hedley is a greater and wiser man than all the railway nabobs thou hast spoken of.”