her that it worked automatically, as it were, she became
even more mystified. I gathered from her remarks that she thought it
meant something like an automatic water shut-off such as we had in the
bath-room to prevent waste. Of course, that was altogether wrong, and I
knew it at the time, but it did not seem worth while to explain in
detail. I merely said that it was something we could keep setting higher
as the stock advanced, so that in event of a downward turn we would save
our original sum, with the accrued profits.

Then we talked about what we would do with the money. We said that now
we had such a lot of good things and were going to make money out of the
Stock we ought to try one really high-class apartment--something with an
elevator, and an air of refinement and gentility. It would cost a good
deal, of course, but the surroundings would be so much more congenial,
so much better for the Precious Ones, and now that I was really doing
fairly well, and that we had the Stock--still we would be prudent and
not move hastily.

We allowed the Stock to advance five points before we really began to
look for a place. Five points advance meant five hundred dollars' profit
on our investment, and my friend on the exchange laughed and
congratulated me and said it was only the beginning. So we put up the
stop-loss, almost as far as it would go, and began to look about for a
place that was quite suitable for people with refined taste, some very
good things in the way of rugs and furniture, and a Stock.

We were not proud as yet. We merely felt prosperous and were willing to
let fortune smile on us amid the proper surroundings. We said it was
easy enough to make money, now that we knew how, and that it was no
wonder there were so many rich people in the metropolis. We had fought
the hard fight, and were willing now to take it somewhat easier. We
selected an apartment with these things in view.

It was some difficulty to find a place that suited both us and the
Precious Ones. Not that they were hard to please--they welcomed anything
in the nature of change--but at most of the fine places children were
rigorously barred, a rule, it seemed to us, that might result in rather
trying complications between landlord and tenant in the course of time
and nature, though we did not pursue investigations in this line. We
found lodgment and welcome at length in the Apollo, a newly constructed
apartment of the latest pattern and in what see