“Don’t you believe it. I know what has been done, and I know what can be done. There are stocks in the market, not half so promising as this, up, already, to fifteen and twenty per cent. above par.”
“Well, from all such uncertain schemes, I hope to be kept free, Mr. Cleveland. Much more, I am satisfied, will be lost than gained, in the end.”
“I shall take good care to be a gainer,” said Cleveland. “Trust me for that.”
“Gain or loss, I am not to be tempted into the danger of losing what I have made in honest trade, by the hope of great returns from doubtful schemes,” replied Townsend, in a very positive way, and thus closed the matter for the present.
CHAPTER IV.
SPECULATION.
A few months afterwards, when Mr. Townsend had, from repeated failures to realize anticipated gains in commerce, grown distrustful of the means of prosperity so long successfully applied, he listened with more interest to what Cleveland had to say about the new roads to wealth that had been opened.
“Depend upon it, Townsend,” said the individual to him, one day, “that you are standing still, while other men are seizing upon the golden opportunities that offer themselves on every hand. Times have greatly changed. A new order of things prevails. Wealth is no longer to be gained in the old channels, or, at least, not without twenty times the labor required in the new channels. Notwithstanding your want of confidence in my ‘Sandy Hill and Dismal Lake Canal’ stock, I managed it just as I said I would. I controlled the Board and had the excavations entered upon with great vigor. I had an office procured in a public location, where a clerk was placed, and every thing reduced to an active business aspect. I secured one or two editors in favor of the work, and got one or two shrewd brokers interested in the stock. Every thing went on just as I desired. The price advanced steadily until about ten days ago, when it reached the maximum of my wishes, since which time I have been selling it as fast as I can without creating suspicion. The stock is still firm. In a week or ten days more I shall not own a share, and then the company can take care of its own interests.”
“And you will have cleared fifty thousand dollars by the operation?”
“Yes, every cent of it.”
“I can hardly credit it.”