"I can't think, Jeremiah, how you ever permitted his father to do such a mad thing as to take those shares."
"I know what I am doing, my dear, don't you worry yourself about that. You have been wanting me for a very long time to give up business and go into the country. How would Fairclose suit you?"
"You are not in earnest," she exclaimed, with an excitement very unusual to her. "You can't mean that?"
"I don't often say what I don't mean, my dear, and if Fairclose comes into the market, more unlikely things than that may come to pass; but mind, not a word of this is to be breathed."
"And do you really think it will come into the market?" she asked.
"As certain as the sun will rise to-morrow morning. We only held our first meeting to-day, but that was enough to show us that the directors ought all to be shut up in a lunatic asylum. The affairs of the bank are in a frightful state, simply frightful; it means ruin to every one concerned."
"It is fortunate, indeed, that you did not hold any shares, Jeremiah."
"I was not such a fool," he said, shortly, "as to trust my money in the hands of a body of men who were all no doubt excellent fellows and admirable county gentlemen, but who knew no more of business than babies, and who would be mere tools in the hands of their manager; and I had the excellent excuse that I considered the legal adviser of a bank should have no pecuniary stake whatever in its affairs, but be able to act altogether without bias."
There was an ironical smile on his lips, and his wife said, admiringly—
"How clever you are, Jeremiah."