"I know that," said Wheaton, humbly.
"You don't go in much on the outside, do you? I suppose you don't have much time."
"No; I'm held down pretty close; and in a bank you can't go into everything."
"Well, there's nothing like keeping an eye out. Good things are not so terribly common these days." Margrave got up and walked the floor once or twice, apparently in a musing humor, but he really wished to look into the adjoining room to make sure they were alone.
"I believe," he said, with emphasis on the pronoun, "there's going to be a good thing for some one in Traction stock. Porter ought to let you in on that." Margrave didn't know that Porter was in, but he expected to find out.
"Mr. Porter has a way of keeping things to himself," said Wheaton, cautiously; yet he was flattered by Margrave's friendliness, and anxious to make a favorable impression. Vanity is not, as is usually assumed, a mere incident of character; it is a disease.
"I suppose," said Margrave, "that a man could buy a barrel of that stuff just now at a low figure."
Wheaton could not resist this opportunity.
"What I have, I got at thirty-one," he answered, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for him to have Traction stock. This was not a bank confidence; there was no reason why he should not talk of his own investments if he wished to do so.