you're going to fill your
list?"

"We'll fill our list all right," returned Sam. "As a matter of fact,
that's what I'm afraid of. These fellows are going to pool their
stock, and hold control in their own hands. Now if I could get you to
invest fifty thousand and vote with me under proper emergency, I could
control the thing; and I ought to. It is my own company. Seems to me
these fellows are selfish about it. You think I'm a good business man,
don't you?"

"I certainly do," agreed Mr. Stevens emphatically.

"Well, it stands to reason that if I have two hundred and sixty
thousand dollars of common stock that isn't worth a picayune unless I
make it worth par, I'll hustle; and if I make my common stock worth
par, I'm making a fine, fat profit for these other fellows, to say
nothing of the raising of their preferred stock from the value of fifty
to a hundred dollars a share, and their common from nothing to a
hundred."

"That's all right, Sam," returned Mr. Stevens; "but you'll work just as
hard to make your common worth par if you only have two hundred
thousand; and there's a growing tendency on the part of capital to be
able to keep a string on its own money. Strange, but true."

"All right," said Sam wearily. "We won't argue that point any more
just now; but will you invest fifty thousand?"

"I can't promise," said Stevens, and he walked out on the porch. Much
worried, Sam followed him, and with many misgivings he introduced Mr.
Stevens to his brother Jack and to Mr. Creamer. The prospective
organizers of the Marsh Pulp Company were already in solemn conclave on
the porch, with the single exception of Princeman, who was on the lawn
talking most perfunctorily with Miss Josephine. That young lady, with
wickedness of the deepest sort in her soul, was doing her best to
entice Mr. Princeman into forgetting the important meeting, but as soon
as Princeman saw the gathering hosts he gently but firmly tore himself
away, very much to her surprise and indignation. Why, he had been as
rude to her as Sam Turner himself, in placing the charms of business
above her own! Immediately afterward she snubbed Billy Westlake
unmercifully. Had he the qualities which would go to make a successful
man in any walk of life? No!

CHAPTER XIV

A DUAL QUESTION OF MATRIMONIAL ELIGIBILITY AND STOCK SUBSCRIPTION

Mr. Westlake dropped back with his old friend Stevens as they trailed
into the parlor which Blackstone had