Lenox appeared so happy it seemed really a pity to wilt his
enthusiasm: he had been beaten so many times that the prediction of
failure was a familiar knell to him. But Jack had no time to waste in
talk of any kind, and at once went into my room to study.

"Never mind Jack," said Harry: "he is a born croaker. I dare say the
silver-mine is made of gold. How about the stock in the ---- Railroad
that your wife holds, Mr. Lenox?" And we both laughed at the old joke.

Mr. Lenox smiled furtively: "It was never safe to trust such a secret to
scatter-brains like yourselves. But don't you know about the great
defalcation? Brown, the president of the road, absconded with over a
million of dollars, and they have not paid a single dividend in three
years. You ought to hear my wife go on about it."

"But you have an easy time: you didn't mind Brown's embezzlement," said
Harry. "What a stroke of luck for you! You can buy back your wife's ten
shares at a low figure, and have a good conscience the rest of your
life."

"By Jove, Harry! you have given me an idea. Just as soon as this new
stock of mine gets above par I will sell out, reinvest and put the
certificates in my wife's bureau-drawer. I should breathe more freely,
there is no doubt of it. I confess to you, boys, it's a deuce of a life
to keep a secret from a woman, she has you at such a disadvantage. Yes,
on my honor, I'll buy in some of that stock: it's utterly worthless for
years to come, and there must be thousands and thousands of shares of it
in the market. Yes, I will do it as soon as I have made two hundred per
cent. on my silver-mine. Yet it does seem a pity--" and he gave us a
prudent nod--"to put money into such a broken-down concern."

"But you are as rich as Croesus," remarked Harry, mixing his colors
meanwhile. "It must be awfully jolly to take two thousand in one's
pocket and go out and buy a silver-mine."

"The fact is," said Mr. Lenox confidentially, "that old Raymond has
shelled out at last. I wrote to him, but he took no notice; so I induced
Georgy to send a note to the little girl at The Headlands, and she
somehow persuaded her grandfather to let me have three thousand dollars.
He sent it in a way which robbed the courtesy of charm; but he is an old
man, and for the sake of little Helen I did not repay him in kind."

"Why, what did he do?"

"Sent me his check pinned to a scrap of paper on which he had scrawled,
'A fool and his money are soon parted.' O