“In most cases the difference between spending money and investing it is wholly a matter of speed. Not one man in ten knows when and where and how to put a dollar properly to work; so the only financial education I expect you to get out of an attempt to go into business is a painful lesson in subtraction.”
“This letter, Johnson, is only a delicate intimation from the governor that I’ll make another blooming ass of myself with this,” commented Bobby, tapping his finger on the check, and placing the letter face downward beside it, where he eyed it askance.
“A quarter of a million!” observed Applerod, rolling out the amount with relish. “A great deal can be done with two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, you know.”
“That’s just the point,” observed Bobby with a frown of perplexity, directed alternately to the faithful gentlemen who for upward of thirty years had been his father’s right and left bowers. “What am I to do with it? Johnson, what would you do with two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?”
“Lose it,” confessed stooped and bloodless Johnson. “I never made a dollar out of a dollar in my life.”
“What would you do with it, Applerod?”
Mr. Applerod, scarcely able to contain himself, had been eagerly awaiting that question.
“Purchase, improve and market the Westmarsh Addition,” he said promptly, expanding fully two inches across his already rotund chest.
“What?” snorted Johnson, and cast upon his workmate a look of withering scorn. “Are you still dreaming about the possibilities of that old swamp?”
“To be sure it is a swamp,” admitted Mr. Applerod with some heat. “Do you suppose you could buy one hundred and twenty acres of directly accessible land, almost at the very edge of the crowded city limits, at two hundred dollars an acre if it wasn’t swamp land?” he demanded. “Why, Mr. Burnit, it is the opportunity of a lifetime!”