"Tut, tut! Wake up! This is business—not moonshine."
"I beg your pardon," said Jermyn, quietly rallying himself. "You mean the affair of that gold placer on the Pacific Coast? Do you suppose I ever can forget it, after the misery that came of it, and the trouble you were put to?"
"Never mind me, at present, except to give me your close attention. My dear boy, our suggestions did the business, and Blogsham has more sense of honor than I usually attribute to a business man. Our plans were of so much promise that he has already organized a company to develop the property. The capital is a million dollars, with permission to increase to three millions, and there are at present ten thousand shares of the par value of one hundred dollars each."
"Hem! That sounds business-like, but I don't see how it implies the sense of honor of which you spoke a moment ago."
"What? Oh, to be sure; I've not reached the most important part of the story. Well, the projector writes me that he hasn't forgotten his promise, and that there are five hundred shares of the stock waiting for me, and five hundred for you, which we can have if——"
"No, I've fooled away enough of my hard earnings upon projects of that kind. Excitement of that sort may do for you, on the pay of a rear admiral, retired, but I——"
"Do let me finish, won't you? I wouldn't put a cent into gold-mining, unless I myself were the manager of the concern, if I were a dozen times as well off as I am. But don't you remember Blogsham's promise? We're to have this stock for nothing but the services we have already rendered. Blogsham asks only that the transactions and his assertions to the company may be entirely business-like, that we shall send him for the company's archives, the sketches which gave him his new ideas as to how to make the placer a working success."
"Whew-w-w-w-!" whistled Jermyn. "Will you kindly remember where those sketches are —or where there is every reason to believe they are?"
"Perfectly; nevertheless they must be obtained. Fifty thousand dollars is too much money for either of us to throw away—Blogsham says the stock can already be sold at par. I'm sure that Mrs. Highwood is too much interested in your future welfare to make any objection to giving up the original document."
"You forget that she sent it to her husband."