it; the advertisement is in the
Cincinnati paper here."

"Land, thirty thousand for ten--in a year! Let's jam in the
whole capital and pull out ninety! I'll write and subscribe right
now--tomorrow it maybe too late."

He was flying to the writing-desk, but Aleck stopped him and put him
back in his chair. She said:

"Don't lose your head so. WE mustn't subscribe till we've got the money;
don't you know that?"

Sally's excitement went down a degree or two, but he was not wholly
appeased.

"Why, Aleck, we'll HAVE it, you know--and so soon, too. He's probably
out of his troubles before this; it's a hundred to nothing he's
selecting his brimstone-shovel this very minute. Now, I think--"

Aleck shuddered, and said:

"How CAN you, Sally! Don't talk in that way, it is perfectly
scandalous."

"Oh, well, make it a halo, if you like, _I_ don't care for his outfit, I
was only just talking. Can't you let a person talk?"

"But why should you WANT to talk in that dreadful way? How would you
like to have people talk so about YOU, and you not cold yet?"

"Not likely to be, for ONE while, I reckon, if my last act was giving
away money for the sake of doing somebody a harm with it. But never mind
about Tilbury, Aleck, let's talk about something worldly. It does seem
to me that that mine is the place for the whole thirty. What's the
objection?"

"All the eggs in one basket--that's the objection."

"All right, if you say so. What about the other twenty? What do you mean
to do with that?"

"There is no hurry; I am going to look around before I do anything with
it."

"All right, if your mind's made up," signed Sally. He was deep in
thought awhile, then he said:

"There'll be twenty thousand profit coming from the ten a year from now.
We can spend that, can we, Aleck?"

Aleck shook her head.

"No, dear," she said, "it won't sell high till we've had the first
semi-annual dividend. You can spend part of that."

"Shucks, only THAT--and a whole year to wait! Confound it, I--"

"Oh, do be patient! It might even be declared in three months--it's
quite within the possibilities."

"Oh, jolly! oh, thanks!" and Sally jumped up and kissed his wife in
gratitude. "It'll be three thousand--three whole thousand! how much
of it can we spend, Aleck? Make it liberal!--do, dear, that's a good
fellow."

Aleck was pleased; so pleased that she yielded to the pressure and
conceded a sum which her judgment told her was a foolish extrava