"Thank you, not this evening. I hope the time will come when we can meet each other often."
"Mark is a good fellow," thought Edgar as he walked up Fifth Avenue. "I thought he was poor, but he seems to be better off than I am."
CHAPTER XXXVII.
SOLON TALBOT'S PLANS.
Solon Talbot was much elated by the great rise in the stock of the Golden Hope Mine. At two hundred and fifty dollars each, the four hundred shares held by his father-in-law's estate would bring one hundred thousand dollars. While only half of this rightfully belonged to him, he felt that he was safe in appropriating the whole, as he imagined that Mark and his mother had no clew to its real ownership.
He had an offer from Crane & Lawton of a hundred thousand for the stock, and this he could obtain at any time. He had not thus far been able to obtain Mrs. Mason's signature to a release, but this he reflected was only a matter of form and need not be regarded.
Mr. Talbot lived in a flat, but desired to own a house. With the capital at his command when the mining stock was disposed of, he felt sure that he could realize a large income in Wall Street by dealings in the stock market. Somehow he seemed to think that the great rise in Golden Hope stock reflected credit on his sagacity.
He went to the office of a prominent real estate broker and examined his list of houses for sale. One especially pleased him—a house on West Forty-Seventh street in excellent condition, which he could buy for forty-five thousand dollars.
"You can pay twenty thousand dollars down," said the broker, "and the balance can stand on mortgage at five per cent."
"I shall probably pay cash down for the whole," responded Mr. Talbot, with the air of a capitalist.
"Very well Mr. Talbot," said the broker respectfully, "that will of course be satisfactory. So would the other arrangement."