play of yours has taken all the cash you
are prepared to lock up. Possibly you may consider the venture too
speculative. Possibly ... there are a hundred reasons why you may not
wish to join us. But I know a dozen men--I can go down Wall Street
to-morrow and pick out twenty men--who will be glad to advance the
necessary capital. I can assure you that I personally shall not
hesitate to risk--if one can call it risking--any loose cash which I
may have lying idle at my banker's."

He rattled the loose cash which he had lying idle in his
trouser-pocket--fifteen cents in all--and stopped to flick a piece of
fluff off his coat-sleeve. Mr. Pilkington was thus enabled to insert a
word.

"How much would you want?" he enquired.

"That," said Uncle Chris meditatively, "is a little hard to say. I
should have to look into the matter more closely in order to give you
the exact figures. But let us say for the sake of argument that you
put up--what shall we say?--a hundred thousand? fifty thousand? ...
no, we will be conservative. Perhaps you had better not begin with
more than ten thousand. You can always buy more shares later. I don't
suppose I shall begin with more than ten thousand myself."

"I could manage ten thousand all right."

"Excellent. We make progress, we make progress. Very well, then. I go
to my Wall Street friends and tell them about the scheme, and say
'Here is ten thousand dollars! What is your contribution?' It puts the
affair on a business-like basis, you understand. Then we really get to
work. But use your own judgment, my boy, you know. Use your own
judgment. I would not think of persuading you to take such a step, if
you felt at all doubtful. Think it over. Sleep on it. And, whatever
you decide to do, on no account say a word about it to Jill. It would
be cruel to raise her hopes until we are certain that we are in a
position to enable her to realize them. And, of course, not a word to
Mrs. Peagrim."

"Of course."

"Very well, then, my boy," said Uncle Chris affably. "I will leave you
to turn the whole thing over in your mind. Act entirely as you think
best. How is your insomnia, by the way? Did you try Nervino? Capital!
There's nothing like it. It did wonders for _me_! Good night, good
night!"

Otis Pilkington had been turning the thing over in his mind, with an
interval for sleep, ever since. And the more he thought of it, the
better the scheme appeared to him. He winced a little at the thought
of