“Mr. Tramlay,” said the young man, trying to speak calmly, but failing most lamentably, “they say a countryman never is satisfied in a trade unless he gets something to boot.”
“Very well. What shall it be?”
“Millions,—everything; that is, I wish you’d give me your daughter too.”
The merchant laughed softly and shook his head. Phil started, and his heart fell.
“I don’t see how I can do that,” said Tramlay; “for, unless my eyes deceive me, you already have her.”
“Thank heaven!” exclaimed Phil, devoutly.
“So say I,” the merchant responded.
CHAPTER XXV.
E. &. W. AGAIN.
One of the penalties of success (according to the successful) being the malignant envy of those who have not succeeded, it is not surprising that in time there began to creep into Wall Street some stories that E. & W. was no better than it should be, nor even quite so good, and that there was no reason why the stock should be so high when solider securities were selling below par.
The management, assisted by the entire E. & W. clique, laughed all such “bear” stories to scorn, and when scorn seemed somewhat insufficient they greatly increased the volume of sales and maintained the price by the familiar, simple, but generally successful expedient of buying from one another through many different brokers in the stock-market. The bear party rallied within a day or two, and returned to the charge with an entirely new set of lies, besides an accidental truth or two; but the E. & W. clique was something of a liar itself, and arranged for simultaneous delivery, at different points on the street, of a lot of stories so full of new mineral developments on the line of the road, and so many new evidences of the management’s shrewdness, that criticism was silenced for a while.