Peaney lowered his voice. "I have agents—men in the offices of great corporations, and they telegraph me secrets. I know when a big stock manipulation is coming off—and my clients profit by it."
"Don't call to mind none, right now, do you?"
Mr. Peaney looked about him cautiously. "I do," he said, in a low voice. "My man in the office of the president of the International Utilities Company wired me to-day that to-morrow they were going to shove the stock up five points."
"Um!... Don't understand. What's that mean?"
"It means, if you invested a thousand dollars on margin and the stock went up five points, you would get your money back, and five thousand dollars besides."
"Say!... I knowed they was money to be made easy.... But I hain't no fool. I don't know you, mister." Scattergood became very cunning. "I don't know this here girl very well—though I kinder took to her at the first. I'm a-goin' cautious. I might git smouged.... What I aim to do is to go careful till I git on to the ropes and know who to trust.... Hain't goin' to put all my money in at the first go-off. No, siree. Goin' to try it first kind of small, and if it shows all right, why, then I'm a-goin' in right up to my neck.... Folks back home would figger I was pretty slick if I come home with a million dollars."
"That's the smart way," Pansy said, with a little grimace at Peaney. "Why don't you try this International Utilities investment, to-morrow—say for a thousand dollars?... If you—come out right, then you'll know you can trust Mr. Peaney, and the next time he has some real information you can jump right in and make a fortune."
"Sounds mighty reasonable. I kin afford to lose a thousand—charge it up to investigatin'.... My, jest think of gainin' five thousand dollars jest by settin' down and takin' it."
"It's the way money is made," said Mr. Peaney.
"How'd I know I'd git the money?" Scattergood asked, with sudden doubt.