Vanulm nodded. "Principally the ads," he answered. "They are cheap, Dick; cheap as the devil, and you know it."
For answer Gordon pulled from his pocket a sheaf of the evening papers, and at random turned to the financial page of the Observer. There, sure enough, in huge black capitals, his latest bit of advice to investors stared the reader in the face:
COPPERS—COPPERS—COPPERS
ran the big head-lines; then, in smaller type, Gordon's brief pithy argument in favor of the purchase of copper stocks; the future of the metal; the expansion of telegraph and telephone; the electrification of railroads; the vain search for a substitute; the immense foreign demand; then good words for half a dozen other mines, all well and favorably known, and, lastly, a glowing paragraph devoted to the past, present and future of the Konahassett, its great area, the wonderful richness of its copper, its boundless possibilities within the next few years. The deduction was as obvious as the type which proclaimed it to the world.
KONAHASSETT—KONAHASSETT
ran the next to last line, and then, for a parting shot at the hesitating speculator, with splendid vigor and decision:
BUY KONAHASSETT—BUY IT OUTRIGHT
AND BUY IT NOW
Gordon grinned again. "And you say they don't care for that at the Federal?" he asked.
Vanulm shook his head. "They most certainly do not," he answered. "In fact, from all I hear, it's going to cost you your place on the House Committee at the next election."
Gordon's lip curled. "Well," he said, composedly enough, "I'm sorry to hear that, and I'm sorry they don't approve of my taste in advertising, but I don't know what they're going to do about it. I've got hold of too good a thing to let go of it now."