But you never can tell how a comedy stab is goin' to turn out. This game of buyin' real estate shares for a dollar or so, with the prospects that before night it might be worth twice as much, was one that hit 'em hard. By Friday Gopher stock was being advertised like Steel preferred, and the brokers was flooded with buyin' orders. Some of the big firms got into the game too. A fat German butcher came all the way down from the Bronx, counted out a thousand dollars in bills to Nelson Hubbs, and was satisfied to walk away with a deed for a hundred front feet of Gopher realty. He wasn't such a boob, either. Two hours later he could have closed out five hundred to the good.
It wa'n't like a stock flurry, where there's an inside gang manipulatin' the wires. All the guidin' hand there was in this deal was that of J. Bayard Steele, and he contents himself with eggin' Hubbs on to stand firm on that ten-cent raise.
"Not a penny more, not a penny less," says he, beamin'. "It'll get 'em."
And I don't know when I've seen him look more contented. As for Nelson Hubbs, he seems a little dazed at it all; but he keeps his head and smiles good-natured on everybody. Not until Gopher Development hits twenty-five dollars a share does he show any signs of gettin' restless.
"Boys," says he, bangin' his fist down on the desk, "it's great! I've turned that thousand-dollar fund into fifty, and as near as I can figure it property values along our Main street have been jumped about eight hundred per cent. They've heard of it out home, and they're just wild. I expect I ought to stay right here and push things; but—well, McCabe, maybe you can guess."
"No word from a certain party, eh?" says I.
Hubbs shakes his head and starts pacin' up and down in front of the window. He hadn't done more'n three laps, though, before in blows a messenger boy and hands him a telegram.
"We-e-e-yow!" yells Hubbs. "Hey, Shorty, it's come—doggoned if it ain't come! Look at that!"
It was a brief bulletin, but full of meat. It runs like this: