"It sounds good."
"Sounds good! It is good." Mr. Symes clenched his huge fist and emphasized the declaration with a blow upon the table which made the dishes rattle.
"Think of it," he went on, "two hundred thousand acres that can be made to bloom like the rose. An earthly paradise of our own making." The flowery figures were borrowed from a railroad folder but Mr. Symes had grasped them with the avidity of true genius and made them his own. "And how?"
The waiter starting away with a tray load of dishes stopped to learn.
"By the mere introduction of water upon the most fertile soil in the world! Is there anything like it—a miracle worker!" Mr. Symes shut one eye and peered into an empty bottle. "And how can this be done?" He answered himself. "By the expenditure of a ridiculously small amount of money; the absurd sum of $250,000. And look at the returns!"
By the intentness of their gaze it was evident that all were willing enough to look. Symes lowered his voice to a dramatic whisper and swept the air with his outspread fingers.
"A clean million!"
The man who made only six thousand a year selling plumbers' supplies, gulped.
"But who's goin' to buy it?" It was the timid voice of the Fly-trap King.
"Buy it!" The questioner withered before Symes's scorn. "Buy it? Why, the world is land-hungry—crying for land!—and water. But I've considered all that; I've arranged for it," Mr. Symes went on with a touch of impatience. "We'll colonize it. We'll import Russian Jews to raise sugar-beets for the sugar-beet factory which we will establish. They will buy it for $50 an acre cash or $60 an acre with 10 per cent. interest upon the deferred payments. It's very simple."