in it." He had thrust the raised point of his cane into the low
wall of the terrace, and he leaned on the knob, screwing the other end
gently round with both hands.

"I'll take an interest if I can understand," said Francie.

"You can understand right enough if you'll try. I got to-day some news
from America," he went on, "that I like awfully. The Reverberator has
taken a jump."

This was not what Francie had expected, but it was better. "Taken a
jump?"

"It has gone straight up. It's in the second hundred thousand."

"Hundred thousand dollars?" said Francie.

"No, Miss Francie, copies. That's the circulation. But the dollars are
footing up too."

"And do they all come to you?"

"Precious few of them! I wish they did. It's a sweet property."

"Then it isn't yours?" she asked, turning round to him. It was an
impulse of sympathy that made her look at him now, for she already knew
how much he had the success of his newspaper at heart. He had once told
her he loved the Reverberator as he had loved his first jack-knife.

"Mine? You don't mean to say you suppose I own it!" George Flack
shouted. The light projected upon her innocence by his tone was so
strong that the girl blushed, and he went on more tenderly: "It's a
pretty sight, the way you and your sister take that sort of thing for
granted. Do you think property grows on you like a moustache? Well,
it seems as if it had, on your father. If I owned the Reverberator I
wouldn't be stumping round here; I'd give my attention to another branch
of the business. That is I'd give my attention to all, but I wouldn't
go round with the delivery-cart. Still, I'm going to capture the blamed
thing, and I want you to help me," the young man went on; "that's
just what I wanted to speak to you about. It's a big proposition as it
stands, but I mean to make it bigger: the most universal society-paper
the world has seen. That's where the future lies, and the man who sees
it first is the man who'll make his pile. It's a field for enlightened
enterprise that hasn't yet begun to be worked." He continued, glowing
as if on a sudden with his idea, and one of his knowing eyes half-closed
itself for an emphasis habitual with him when he talked consecutively.
The effect of this would have been droll to a listener, the note of the
prospectus mingling with the question of his more intimate hope. But it
was not droll to Francie; she only thought it, or supposed it, a proof
of the way Mr. Fl