as the reason that Tomlinson gave was such a
simple one. He said that he didn't want to part with the top end of the
place because his father was buried on it beside the creek, and so he
didn't want the dam higher up, not for any consideration.

This was regarded in business circles as a piece of great shrewdness.
"Says his father is buried there, eh? Devilish shrewd that!"

It was so long since any of the members of the Exchange or the
Mausoleum Club had wandered into such places as Cahoga County that they
did not know that there was nothing strange in what Tomlinson said. His
father was buried there, on the farm itself, in a grave overgrown with
raspberry bushes, and with a wooden headstone encompassed by a square
of cedar rails, and slept as many another pioneer of Cahoga is sleeping.

"Devilish smart idea!" they said; and forthwith half the financial men
of the city buried their fathers, or professed to have done so, in
likely places--along the prospective right-of-way of a suburban
railway, for example; in fact, in any place that marked them out for
the joyous resurrection of an expropriation purchase.

Thus the astounding shrewdness of Tomlinson rapidly became a legend,
the more so as he turned everything he touched to gold.

They narrated little stories of him in the whiskey-and-soda corners of
the Mausoleum Club.

"I put it to him in a casual way," related, for example, Mr. Lucullus
Fyshe, "casually, but quite frankly. I said, 'See here, this is just a
bagatelle to you, no doubt, but to me it might be of some use. T. C.
bonds,' I said, 'have risen twenty-two and a half in a week. You know
as well as I do that they are only collateral trust, and that the stock
underneath never could and never can earn a par dividend. Now,' I said,
'Mr. Tomlinson, tell me what all that means?' Would you believe it, the
fellow looked me right in the face in that queer way he has and he
said, 'I don't know!'"

"He said he didn't know!" repeated the listener, in a tone of amazement
and respect. "By Jove! eh? he said he didn't know! The man's a wizard!"

"And he looked as if he didn't!" went on Mr. Fyshe. "That's the deuce
of it. That man when he wants to can put on a look, sir, that simply
means nothing, absolutely nothing."

In this way Tomlinson had earned his name of the Wizard of American
Finance.

And meantime Tomlinson and his wife, within their suite at the Grand
Palaver, had long since reached their decision. For t