ts.

Mr. and Mrs. Frump lived happily on their country property. Mr. Frump
tried experiments in blackberry raising, which proved a success, and
was, at last accounts, concentrating his talents on the development of a
new strawberry seedling. Whenever he went to town, he made a point of
carrying back Matthew Maltboy, for whom his regard was inexplicably
strong; and nothing gave him greater pleasure than to see his wife,
gracefully mounted on the spirited filly, and Matthew, heavily astride
of the sober gray, starting off for a morning's ride, while he stayed at
home to push on the seedling.

When Wesley Tiffles had spent ten thousand dollars in elegant leisure,
he arrived at the noble determination to "salt down," as he called it,
the remaining ten thousand dollars, in ten different savings banks. He
distributed it thus, in order that the failure of one of the banks might
not ruin him. The interest of this money, drawn half-yearly, furnished
him with a basis for operations of a character requiring genius, pens,
ink, and paper, rather than ready cash. Whenever Tiffles's resources ran
short, as they did occasionally, he always borrowed, and paid on the
next interest day. In this policy he was inflexible; and he flattered
himself on the sternness of his self-denial.

Among the schemes which failed to receive the cordial approbation of
capitalists, were the following: "A process for extracting green paint
from green leaves;" ditto for "making nutritious food from the direct
combination of earth, air, and water;" a plan (submitted to the
unappreciating Government of Naples) to "extinguish the volcano of
Vesuvius, by pumping water from the Bay into the crater, in
consideration of the sum of one million florins, and a monopoly of
working the extinct volcano for lava."

Wesley Tiffles, profiting, at a late day, by the lesson of the
"Cosmopolitan Window Fastener," finally invented and patented a striking
improvement in an apple-paring machine, and, at last accounts, was
clenching a good bargain for the sale of his invention.

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