“Ticky-ticky-ticky-tick,” said the ticker.
What did it mean, in figures? Reduced to dollars and cents, what did the last three brassy taps say? Perhaps the bears were storming the Alabama Coal & Iron intrenchments of “scaled buying orders”; perhaps Colwell’s trusted lieutenant, Fred Denton, had repulsed the enemy. Who was winning? A spasm, as of pain, passed over Mr. Fullerton F. Colwell’s grave face. But the next moment he said to her, slightly conscience-strickenly, as if he reproached himself for thinking of the stock market in her presence: “You must not permit yourself to brood, Mrs. Hunt. You know what I thought of Harry, and I need not tell you how glad I shall be to do what I may, for his sake, Mrs. Hunt, and for your own.”
“Ticky-ticky-ticky-tick!” repeated the ticker.
To avoid listening to the voluble little machine, he went on: “Believe me, Mrs. Hunt, I shall be only too glad to serve you.”
“You are so kind, Mr. Colwell,” murmured the widow; and after a pause: “I came to see you about that money.”
“Yes?”
“They tell me in the trust company that if I leave the money there without touching it I’ll make $79 a month.”
“Let me see; yes; that is about what you may expect.”
“Well, Mr. Colwell, I can’t live on that. Willie’s school costs me $50, and then there’s Edith’s clothes,” she went on, with an air which implied that as for herself she wouldn’t care at all. “You see, he was so indulgent, and they are used to so much. Of course, it’s a blessing we have the house; but taxes take up so much; and—isn’t there some way of investing the money so it could bring more?”
“I might buy some bonds for you. But for your principal to be absolutely safe at all times, you will have to invest in very high-grade securities, which will return to you about 3½ per cent. That would mean, let’s see, $110 a month.”