Simon. Uncle Brimer Stone. We called him Brim, for short——Brim Stone; pretty good name for him, for he was a regular old Satan,——well, he left me a thousand dollars.
Nancy. A thousand dollars?
Simon. Exactly. Now, says I, Simon, you’ve been a rolling stone long enough. You’ve got a nest egg: sit still, and see what will come of it.
Nancy. Well, what did?
Simon. Calker Goodwin, the broker, came and wanted to borrow it: a genial fellow after he found I had the money, though he did cut me a week before; but then legacies, like death, level all distinctions.
Nancy. And you let him have it?
Simon. No; declined with thanks, as the editors tell the poets. Then he told me of a good investment. “The Iris.”
Nancy. Irish what?
Simon. “The Iris,”——a silver mine,——somewhere or nowhere, it don’t matter which. The stock was way down: eighty cents. Cal said it would rise in three days: bade me go in and win. So in I went, invested my thousand in Iris, and in three days it was way up to ten dollars, in three weeks to forty; then I got scared.