"Well, you haven't any bonds, have you? First thing I know you'll be telling me that you've got a few barrels of them," he added, jokingly. He could not help laughing at Porter.
Porter took the cigar from his mouth, looked carefully at the lighted end of it, and said with a casual air, as if he had a particularly decisive and conclusive statement to make and wished to avail himself of its dramatic possibilities:
"My dear boy, I've got every blamed bond!"
Fenton sat gazing at him in stupefied wonder.
"Would you mind saying that again?" he said, after a full minute of silent amazement in which he sat staring at his client, who was blowing rings of smoke with great equanimity.
"I've got all the bonds, was what I said."
The lawyer walked around the table and put his hand on Porter's shoulder. He was trying to keep from laughing, like a parent who is about to rebuke a child and yet laughs at the cause of its offense. Porter evidently thought that he had done an extremely bright thing.
"As I understand you, you have bought all of the bonds and half of the stock."
"About half. I'm a little—just a little—short."