o use your
independent judgment after a good deal of work. And all this a trustee
greatly dislikes. It rewards you with five and even six per cent, but
that is no stimulus to a trustee.'"

"Something in me had leaped when Mr. Beverly mentioned six per cent.
Again I thought of Ethel and October, and what a difference it would
be to begin our modest housekeeping on sixty instead of forty thousand
dollars a year, outside of what I was earning. Mr. Beverly now rang
a bell. 'You happen to have come,' said he, 'on a morning when I can
really do something for you out of the common. Bring me (it was a clerk
he addressed) one of those Petunia circulars. Now here you can see at a
glance for yourself.' He began reading the prospectus rapidly aloud
to me while I followed its paragraphs with my own eye. His strong,
well-polished thumb-nail ran heavily but speedily down the columns
of figures and such words as gross receipts, increase of population,
sinking fund, redeemable at 105 after 1920, churned vigorously and
meaninglessly through my brain. But I was not going to let him know that
to understand the circular I should have to take it away quietly to my
desk in Nassau Street, and spend an hour with it alone."

"'What is your opinion of Petunia Water sixes?' he inquired."

"'They are a lead-pipe cinch,' I immediately answered; and he slapped me
on the knee."

"'That's what I think!' he cried. 'Anyhow, I have taken 20,000 for
mother. Do what you like.'"

"'Oh well,' said I, delighted at this confidence, I think I can afford
to risk what you are willing to risk for your mother, Mrs. Beverly.
Where is Petunia, did you say?'"

"He pulled down a roller map on the wall as you draw down a
window-blind, and again I listened to statements that churned in my
brain. Petunia was a new resort on the sea coast of New Hampshire. One
railway system did already connect it with both Portsmouth and Portland,
but it was not a very direct connection at present. Yet in spite of
this, the population had increased 23 and seven-tenths per cent in five
years, and now an electric railway was in construction that would double
the population in the next five years. This was less than what had
happened to other neighbouring resorts under identical conditions; yet
with things as they now were, the company was earning two per cent on
its stock, which was being put into improvements. The stock was selling
at 30, and if a dividend was paid next year, it woul