‘What a nice name! I wonder if they would let us have any?’
‘Oh yes, they are to be bought in the open market. It is like this, Maude. The mine was a very good one, and paid handsome dividends. Then it had some misfortunes. First, there was no water, and then there was too much water, and the workings were flooded. So, of course, the price of the shares fell. Now they are getting the mine all right again, but the shares are still low. It certainly seems a very good chance to pick a few of them up.’
‘Are they very dear, Frank?’
‘I looked them up in the Mining Register before I came home yesterday. The original price of each share was ten shillings, but as they have had these misfortunes, one would expect to find them rather lower.’
‘Ten shillings! It does not seem much to pay for a share in a thing with a name like that.’
‘Here it is,’ said he, pointing with a pencil to one name in a long printed list. ‘This one, between the Royal Bonanza and the Alabaster Consols. You see—El Dorado Proprietary! Then after it you have printed, 4¾—4⅞. I don’t profess to know much about these things, but that of course means the price.’
‘Yes, dear, it is printed at the top of the column—“Yesterday’s prices.”’
‘Quito so. Well, we know that the original price of each share was ten shillings, and of course they must have dropped with a flood in the mine, so that these figures must mean that the price yesterday was four shillings and nine-pence, or thereabouts.’
‘What a clear head for business you have, dear!’
‘I think we can’t do wrong in buying at that price. You see, with our fifty pounds we could buy two hundred of them, and then if they went up again we could sell, and take our profit.’