Boast looked absently’ out of the window and said, “I might sell them in time by putting them on my special bargain list.”
“At what price?” Vance ventured to ask.
“Let me see,” said Boast, “you paid $2,500 for them, did you not?”
“Yes,” replied Vance.
“Oh, well,” said Boast, “I might be able to get $500 for them, but it would be a pretty green sort of a tenderfoot that I could load them on at even that price. But what’s the use,” said he, facing around toward Vance and still sitting on the table, “what’s the use of losing your nerve? Within one or two years Waterville will be all right. She can’t be kept down. She has natural resources; the richest farm lands in the world; the greatest water power of any inland city in the United States; marvelous veins of coal; inexhaustible quarries of rock; unsurpassed forests of timber; and abundance of water for irrigating purposes.
Why, dang it, old fellow,” said he, slapping Vance on the shoulder, “Waterville s all right. All you’ve got to do is to hold on to your nerve and your lots, and you will come out on top.”
“That’s all very well,” replied Vance, “but the ray of hope you hold out is too far away to be very satisfactory at the present time.”