“Not yet. Hold on! Don’t you understand my position?”
“Very clearly; you are short. So am I. If I could help you, I would do so with the greatest pleasure.”
“You can help me. We are both honest fellows, and don’t mean to wrong or injure any one.”
“That’s myself for one,” I replied, warmly.
He seemed to be using the very arguments which. I had applied to my own case while borrowing the funds of the bank that employed me. What did he mean by it? Could it be possible that he even suspected me of taking the money of the bank? Had he by any means obtained a hint of my financial operations? He was in another establishment. He could not suspect what none in our bank suspected. I was excited with champagne, and I dismissed the fear as preposterous.
“That’s myself for another!” exclaimed he, with more emphasis than the subject matter seemed to require. “My coppers have doubled on my hands.”
“What are your coppers?” I inquired.
“The Ballyhack,” he answered promptly. “Do you think I haven’t any?”
He pulled from his breast-pocket a bundle of papers, and exhibited certificates of shares for a very large amount of stock. Just at this time there was a fever of speculation in these copper stocks. While some were substantial companies, many were mere fancies, run up to high figures by unscrupulous and dishonest men. In the particular one he mentioned, the upward progress of the stock had been tremendous. Men had made five or ten thousand dollars in them as easily as they could turn their hands. It was patent to me that the Ballyhack had doubled in a week, and was gaining rapidly every day.
Cormorin had “gone in for a big thing,” for he exhibited two hundred shares, for which he had paid twenty-five, and which was now quoted at fifty. Shrewd men were buying it at this rate, confident that the stock would touch a hundred in a week or two. Cormorin’s statements, therefore, were reasonable, and I began to be deeply interested in the operation. If this reckless and semi-dissipated fellow could make five or ten thousand dollars in a fortnight, why might not I do the same. It flashed upon my mind that I could redeem myself from my own financial difficulties by this exciting process—if I only had the capital to make the investment. My companion had gone deeply into the business, and could advise me in regard to some safe and profitable speculation in coppers. It would be even less troublesome than borrowing money of Aunt Rachel.