“You see it now,” continued Cormorin, folding up his papers, and restoring them to his pocket.
“I do; that’s a good operation.”
“That’s so! What’s the use for a man to be contented with a paltry salary of two thousand a year, when he can make five times that sum in a week or two? That’s the question,” said he, vehemently.
“It is all very well for a fellow that has the capital to go into these operations,” I added.
“The capital! Yes; that’s so! There’s the rub. But you see I didn’t have any capital.”
He paused to fill the glasses again, though mine was not empty. He was laboring with the next step in his revelation, and, reckless as he was, he appeared to halt on the verge of further developments. I could not see how he purchased his stock, if he had no capital; and I was rather anxious to have the problem solved.
“Nary red,” he added, as I did not ask the question which would suggest the revelation he evidently wished to make. “Not a cent—up to my eyes in debt beside—one, two or three thousand dollars. O, well! When a man understands himself, these things are easy enough. By the way, Glasswood, don’t you want to try your hand in this business? I know of a new company, which is going to be the cock of the walk on State Street. You can buy it for twenty to-day. It will be twenty-five to-morrow, for it is going like hot cakes. Everybody is after it. I have been tempted to sell my Ballyhack and invest in it.”
“What’s the company?”
“The Bustumup—Indian name, you know. It’s going up like a rocket, now.”
“Perhaps it will come down like one.”