"Pshaw, man! you don't know what you're talking about--we've a great
deal more capital than that. Have not I told you seventy times over,
that everything a man has--his coat, his hat, the tumblers he drinks
from, nay, his very corporeal existence--is absolute marketable
capital? What do you call that fourteen-gallon cask, I should like to
know?"

"A compound of hoops and staves, containing about a quart and a half
of spirits--you have effectually accounted for the rest."

"Then it has gone to the fund of profit and loss, that's all.
Never let me hear you sport those old theories again. Capital is
indestructible, as I am ready to prove to you any day, in half an
hour. But let us sit down seriously to business. We are rich enough to
pay for the advertisements, and that is all we need care for in the
mean time. The public is sure to step in, and bear us out handsomely
with the rest."

"But where in the face of the habitable globe shall the railway be?
England is out of the question, and I hardly know a spot in the
Lowlands that is not occupied already."

"What do you say to a Spanish scheme--the Alcantara Union? Hang me
if I know whether Alcantara is in Spain or Portugal; but nobody
else does, and the one is quite as good as the other. Or what would
you think of the Palermo Railway, with a branch to the sulphur
mines?--that would be popular in the North--or the Pyrenees Direct?
They would all go to a premium."

"I must confess I should prefer a line at home."

"Well, then, why not try the Highlands? There must be lots of traffic
there in the shape of sheep, grouse, and Cockney tourists, not to
mention salmon and other et-ceteras. Couldn't we tip them a railway
somewhere in the west?"

"There's Glenmutchkin, for instance----"

"Capital, my dear fellow! Glorious! By Jove, first-rate!" shouted Bob
in an ecstasy of delight. "There's a distillery there, you know, and a
fishing-village at the foot--at least there used to be six years ago,
when I was living with the exciseman. There may be some bother about
the population, though. The last laird shipped every mother's son of
the aboriginal Celts to America; but, after all, that's not of much
consequence. I see the whole thing! Unrivalled scenery--stupendous
waterfalls--herds of black cattle--spot where Prince Charles Edward
met Macgrugar of Glengrugar and his clan! We could not possibly have
lighted on a more promising place. Hand us over that sheet of paper,
like a