Ben next examined the man who was sitting beside the supposed Ezra Winter.
He was a man of the same type, evidently—a man with a low forehead and small ferret-like eyes. The two seemed to be engaged in a deeply interesting and earnest conversation. Ben was curious to learn what they were talking about, and did not scruple to sit down as near them as possible, in the hope of learning.
“Yes,” said the first man, who was really Ezra Winter, “I have made a pretty good thing out of the Muddy Gulch Mining Company. I got in at bottom figures, and have sold a large number of shares at ten times what I gave for them.”
“Is the stock worth anything, Ezra?”
“Precious little. It looks well—on paper. I have an old uncle up in the country—in Wrayburn, New Hampshire, who is in to the extent of three thousand dollars. The old man is tight as a file, but I humbugged him into thinking I was going to double his money within a year, and by degrees I drew him in.
“First he invested a thousand dollars after a hundred questions. That was about a year ago. I’ll tell you how I managed to get him in deeper. At the end of three months I invented a ten per cent. dividend, paying it all out of my own pocket. It paid, for he almost immediately put in two thousand dollars more. There haven’t been any dividends since!”
“Isn’t he uneasy?”
“I should say so. I get a letter about every week, asking how soon there is going to be another dividend. A short time since the old man came to Boston to make me a visit. It was the first time he had been there since he was thirty years old. I was dismayed when I saw him coming, but I pulled myself together and gave him exclusive news of a rich find of ore that would carry up the price to twice what he paid for it.
“I don’t know whether I quite deceived him or not. He wanted me to sell out half his stock, but I told him it would be at a great sacrifice. In fact he couldn’t get more than fifty cents a share, but I didn’t tell him that. He suggested asking some other broker about it, but that would never do. I told him I would keep him apprised of the advance in the stock, and would write him every week. So every week I have written him an encouraging letter, but I am afraid every day of seeing the rusty old man enter the office.”
