"I did not sell Amalgamated Electric on Wednesday, and on Thursday a
doubt about the increased dividend began to be circulated. The stock,
nevertheless, after a forenoon of weakness, rallied. Moreover a check
for my first dividend came from the Pollyopolis Heat, Light, Power,
Paving, Pressing, and Packing Company."

"'What a number of things it does!' exclaimed Ethel, when I showed her
the company's check."

"'Yes,' I replied, and quoted Browning to her: ''Twenty-nine Distinct
damnations. One sure if the other fails.' Beverly's mother has a lot of
it.'"

"But Ethel did not smile. 'Richard,' she said, 'I do wish you had more
investments with ordinary simple names, like New York and New Haven, or
Chicago and Northwestern.' And when I told her that I thought this was
really unreasonable, she was firm. 'Yes,' she replied, 'I don't like the
names--not most of them, at least. Dutchess and Columbia Traction sounds
pretty well; and besides that, of course one knows how successful these
electric railways are. But take the Standard Egg Trust, and the Patent
Pasteurised Infant Rubber Feeder Company.'"

"'Why, Ethel!' I exclaimed, 'those are both based upon great inventions,
Mr. Beverly--'"

"But she interrupted me earnestly 'I know about those inventions,
Richard, for I have procured the prospectuses. And I wish that I could
have told you my own feeling about them before you bought any of the
stock.'"

"'I do not think you can fully have taken it in, Ethel.'"

"'I trust that it may not have fully taken you in,' she replied. 'Have
you noticed what those stocks are selling for at present?'"

"Of course I had noticed this. I had paid 63 for Standard Egg, and it
was now 48, while 11 was the price of Patent Pasteurized Feeder, for
which I had paid 20. But this, Mr. Beverly assured me, was a normal and
even healthy course for a new stock. 'Had they gone up too soon and too
high,' he explained, 'I should have suspected some crooked manipulation
and advised selling at once. But this indicates a healthy absorption
preliminary to a natural rise. I should not dream of letting mother part
with hers.'"

"The basis of Standard Egg was not only a monopoly of all the hens in
the United States, but a machine called a Separator, for telling the age
and state of an egg by means of immersion in water. Perfectly good eggs
sank fast and passed out through one distributor; fairly nice eggs did
not reach the bottom, and were drawn off thro