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he object of all civilization, and the Skerretts had discovered the methods. I must dismiss the dinner and the evening, stamped with the general epithet, Perfection. "You will join us again to-morrow on the river," said Mrs. Skerrett, as Wade rose to go. "To-morrow I go to town to report to my Directors." "Then next day." "Next day, with pleasure." Wade departed and marked this halcyon day with white chalk, as the whitest, brightest, sweetest of his life. CHAPTER X. FOREBODINGS. Jubilation! Jubilation now, instead of Consternation, in the office of Mr. Benjamin Brummage in Wall Street. President Brummage had convoked his Directors to hear the First Semi-Annual Report of the new Superintendent and Dictator of Dunderbunk. And there they sat around the green table, no longer forlorn and dreading a, failure, but all chuckling with satisfaction over their prosperity. They were a happy and hilarious family now,--so hilarious that the President was obliged to be always rapping to Order with his paper-knife. Every one of these gentlemen was proud of himself as a Director of so successful a Company. The Dunderbunk advertisement might now consider itself as permanent in the newspapers, and the Treasurer had very unnecessarily inserted the notice of a dividend, which everybody knew of already. When Mr. Churm was not by, they all claimed the honor of having discovered Wade, or at least of having been the first to appreciate him. They all invited him to dinner,--the others at their houses, Sam Gwelp at his club. They had not yet begun to wax fat and kick. They still remembered the panic of last summer. They passed a unanimous vote of the most complimentary confidence in Wade, approved of his system, forced upon him an increase of salary, and began to talk of "launching out" and doubling their capital. In short, they behaved as Directors do when all is serene. Churm and Wade had a hearty laugh over the absurdities of the Board and all their vague propositions. "Dunderbunk," said Churm, "was a company started on a sentimental basis, as many others are." "Mr. Brummage fell in love with pig-iron?" "Precisely. He had been a dry-goods jobber, risen from a retailer somewhere in the country. He felt a certain lack of dignity in his work. He wanted to deal in something more masculine than lace and ribbons. He read a sentimental article on Iron in the 'Journal of Commerce': how Iron held the
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