“That's too bad!” cried Beecher, angrily. “The only thing he ever 'put me on' was an iron-master's widow at Barnstable, and I found that the whole concern was under a contract to furnish rails for a Peruvian line at two pounds ten a ton under the market price of iron.”
“It was I discovered that!” broke in Grog, proudly.
“So it was, old fellow; and you got me off the match without paying forfeit.”
“Well, this here looks better,” continued Grog, reading.
“Young and handsome, one of two daughters of an old Irish provision merchant come abroad for the first time in their life, and consequently new to everything. The name's O'Reilly, of Mary's Abbey, so that you can have no difficulty in accurately learning all about him in Dublin. Knowing that these things are snapped up immediately in the cities, I have induced O'R. to take a villa on the lake here for the present, so that if your inquiries turn out satisfactorily, you can come out at once, and we 'll find the birds where I have landed them.'”
“That's business-like,—that's well and sensibly put,” said Davis, in a voice of no counterfeited admiration.
He read on: “'O'R. talks of forty thousand to each, but, with the prospect of connecting himself with people of station, might possibly come down more handsomely in one case, particularly when brought to see that the other girl's prospects will be proportionately bettered by this alliance; at all events, no time is to be lost in the matter, and you can draw on me, at two months, for fifty pounds, which will carry you out here, and where, if you should not find me, you will have letters of presentation to the O'R.'s. It is not a case requiring either time or money,—though it may call for more energy and determination than you are in the habit of exercising. At the proper moment I shall be ready to contribute all in my power.'
“What does that mean?” said Davis.
“I can't even guess; but no matter, the thing sounds well. You can surely learn all about this O'Reilly?”
“That's easy enough.”