“That child has insisted on leaving this cheque with me and I have advised her to buy Argentinos,” my father would observe after she was gone. “I am going to put a few hundreds into them myself. I hope they will turn out all right, if only for her sake. I have a presentiment somehow that they will.”
A month later Barbara would greet him with: “Isn't it lucky we bought Argentinos!”
“Yes; they haven't turned out badly, have they? I had a feeling, you know, for Argentinos.”
“You're a genius, Uncle Luke. And now we will sell out and buy Calcuttas, won't we?”
“Sell out? But why?”
“You said so. You said, 'We will sell out in about a month and be quite safe.'”
“My dear, I've no recollection of it.”
But Barbara had, and before she had done with him, so had he. And the next day Argentinos would be sold—not any too soon—and Calcuttas bought.
Could money so gained bring a blessing with it? The question would plague my father.
“It's very much like gambling,” he would mutter uneasily to himself at each success, “uncommonly like gambling.”