perfectly sure investment to anybody that'll wait. I can't afford to
wait, that's what's the matter. It kind of run acrost my mind that maybe
you'd like to have my holdin's, my five hundred shares. I'll sell 'em to
you reasonable."

"Humph! I want to know! What do you call reasonable?"

"I'll sell 'em to you for--for--well, say nineteen dollars a share."

"Humph! Don't bother me any more, Raish."

"Well, say eighteen dollars a share. Lord sakes, that's reasonable
enough, ain't it?"

"Cruise along towards home, Raish. I've talked all the business I want
to on Sunday. Good-by."

"Look here, Jethro, I--I'm hard up, I'm desp'rate, pretty nigh. I'll
let you have my five hundred shares of Wellmouth Development Company
for just half what I paid for it--ten dollars a share. If you wasn't my
friend, I wouldn't--What are you laughin' at?"

Galusha Bangs, hiding behind the tomb, understanding nothing of this
conversation, yet feeling like an eavesdropper, wished this provoking
pair would stop talking and go away. He heard the light keeper laugh
sardonically.

"Ho, ho, ho," chuckled Hallett. "You're a slick article, ain't you,
Raish? Why, you wooden-headed swab, did you cal'late you was the only
one that had heard about the directors' meetin' over to the Denboro
Trust Company yesterday? _I_ knew the Trust Company folks had decided
not to go ahead with the fish storage business just as well as you did,
and I heard it just as soon, too. _I_ know they've decided to put the
twelve hundred shares of Wellmouth Development stock into profit and
loss, or to just hang on and see if it ever does come to anything. But
you cal'lated I didn't know it and that maybe you could unload your five
hundred shares on to me at cut rates, eh? Raish, you're slick--but you
ain't bright, not very."

He chuckled again. Mr. Pulcifer whistled, apparently expressing
resignation.

"ALL right, Cap'n," he observed, cheerfully, "just as you say. No harm
in tryin', was there? Never catch a fish without heavin' over a hook,
as the feller said. Maybe somebody else that ain't heard will buy that
stock, you can't tell."

"Maybe so, but--See here, Raish, don't you go tryin' anything like this
on--on--"

"I know who you mean. No danger. There ain't money enough there to buy
anything, if what I hear's true."

"What's that?"

"Oh, nothin', nothin'. Just talk, I guess. Well, Jeth, I won't keep you
any longer. Goin' to hang on to YOUR four hundred Develop