"With what I was worth before," he soliloquized, "I may now rate myself at one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That is very good—for a beginning. I can afford to buy the house in Forty-Seventh Street, for I shall still have a hundred thousand dollars over, and in five years I mean to make it half a million."
He paced up and down his library in a state of joyous excitement. No thought of giving his sister-in-law her rightful due entered his mind.
"How can she find out?" he reflected. "Old Mr. Doane never told any of us of his mining shares. I presume he looked upon them as rather a risky investment. It has proved to be a splendid speculation, but it was rather a lucky accident than a shrewd purchase."
It was after breakfast on the morning succeeding the sale of stock. Mr. Talbot was preparing to go over to the house which he proposed to purchase for a last examination before making up his mind, when the servant entered the library.
"There is a boy down-stairs wishes to see you, Mr. Talbot," he said.
"Perhaps a boy from Crane & Lawton," he reflected. "Show him up."
Directly afterwards Mark Mason entered the room.
"Mark!" exclaimed Talbot. "What brings you here!"
"A matter of business, Uncle Solon."
"Then you will have to wait, for I am just going out."