of our Progress
in apartment life, and to acquire other valuable experience. It happened
in this wise.

Of the Sum there still remained a fragment--unimportant and fragile, it
would seem--but quite sufficient, as it proved, to make our lives
reasonably exciting for several months.

A friend on the Stock Exchange whispered to me one morning that there
was to be a big jump in Calfskin Common--something phenomenal, he said,
and that a hundred shares would pay a profit directly that would
resemble money picked up in the highway.

I had never dealt in stocks, or discovered any currency in the public
thoroughfares, but my recent inheritance of the Sum and its benefits had
developed a taste in the right direction. Calfskin Common was low then,
almost as low as it has been since, and an option on a hundred shares
could be secured with a ridiculously small amount--even the fragment of
the Sum would be sufficient.

I mentioned the matter that night to the Little Woman. We agreed almost
instantly that there was no reason why we should not make something on
Calfskin Common, though I could see that the Little Woman did not know
what Calfskin Common was. I have hinted before that she was not then
conversant with the life and lingo of the Stock Exchange, and on the
whole my advantage in this direction was less than it seemed at the
time. I think we both imagined that Calfskin Common had something to do
with a low grade of hides, and the Little Woman said she supposed there
must be a prospective demand from some foreign country that would
advance the price of cheap shoes. Of course it would be nice to have our
investments profitable, but on the whole perhaps I'd better lay in an
extra pair or so of everyday footwear for the Precious Ones.

I acquired some information along with my option on the stock next day,
so that both the Little Woman and myself could converse quite
technically by bed-time. We knew that we had "put up a ten per cent.
margin" and had an "option" at twelve dollars a share on a hundred
shares of the common stock in leather corporation--said stock being
certain to go to fifty and perhaps a hundred dollars a share within the
next sixty days. The fragment of the Sum and a trifle more had been
exchanged for the Stock, and we were "in on a deal." Then too we had a
"stop-loss" on the Stock so that we were safe, whatever happened.

The Little Woman didn't understand the "stop-loss" at first, and when I
explained to