he shares. Your father takes, we say, fifty shares at L50 each,
paying only an instalment of L2 a share. He sells 35 shares at cent per
cent. He keeps the remaining 15, and his fortune's made all the same;
only it is not quite so large as if he had kept the whole concern in his
own hands. What say you now, brother Caxton? Visne edere pomum? as we
used to say at school."

"I don't want a shilling more than I have got," said my father,
resolutely. "My wife would not love me better; my food would not nourish
me more; my boy would not, in all probability, be half so hardy, or a
tenth part so industrious; and--"

"But," interrupted Uncle Jack, pertinaciously, and reserving his grand
argument for the last, "the good you would confer on the community; the
progress given to the natural productions of your country; the wholesome
beverage of cider brought within cheap reach of the laboring classes. If
it was only for your sake, should I have urged this question? Should I
now? Is it in my character? But for the sake of the public! mankind! of
our fellow-creatures! Why, sir, England could not get on if gentlemen
like you had not a little philanthropy and speculation."

"Papoe!" exclaimed my father; "to think that England can't get on
without turning Austin Caxton into an apple-merchant! My dear Jack,
listen. You remind me of a colloquy in this book,--wait a bit, here it
is, 'Pamphagus and Cocles.' Cocles recognizes his friend, who had been
absent for many years, by his eminent and remarkable nose. Pamphagus
says, rather irritably, that he is not ashamed of his nose. 'Ashamed of
it! no, indeed,' says Cocles; 'I never saw a nose that could be put to
so many uses!' 'Ha!' says Pamphagus (whose curiosity is aroused), 'uses!
what uses?' Whereon (lepidissime frater!) Cocles, with eloquence as
rapid as yours, runs on with a countless list of the uses to which so
vast a development of the organ can be applied. 'If the cellar was deep,
it could sniff up the wine like an elephant's trunk; if the bellows were
missing, it could blow the fire; if the lamp was too glaring, it could
suffice for a shade; it would serve as a speaking-trumpet to a herald;
it could sound a signal of battle in the field; it would do for a wedge
in wood-cutting, a spade for digging, a scythe for mowing, an anchor in
sailing,'--till Painphagus cries out, 'Lucky dog that I am! and I never
knew before what a useful piece of furniture I carried about with me.'"
My father