d and
effectiveness of the two machines. As a consequence, Aleck made
imaginary money much faster than at first she had dreamed of making it,
and Sally's competency in spending the overflow of it kept pace with the
strain put upon it, right along. In the beginning, Aleck had given the
coal speculation a twelvemonth in which to materialize, and had been
loath to grant that this term might possibly be shortened by nine
months. But that was the feeble work, the nursery work, of a financial
fancy that had had no teaching, no experience, no practice. These
aids soon came, then that nine months vanished, and the imaginary
ten-thousand-dollar investment came marching home with three hundred per
cent. profit on its back!

It was a great day for the pair of Fosters. They were speechless for
joy. Also speechless for another reason: after much watching of the
market, Aleck had lately, with fear and trembling, made her first flyer
on a "margin," using the remaining twenty thousand of the bequest
in this risk. In her mind's eye she had seen it climb, point by
point--always with a chance that the market would break--until at last
her anxieties were too great for further endurance--she being new to
the margin business and unhardened, as yet--and she gave her imaginary
broker an imaginary order by imaginary telegraph to sell. She said forty
thousand dollars' profit was enough. The sale was made on the very day
that the coal venture had returned with its rich freight. As I have
said, the couple were speechless, they sat dazed and blissful that
night, trying to realize that they were actually worth a hundred
thousand dollars in clean, imaginary cash. Yet so it was.

It was the last time that ever Aleck was afraid of a margin; at least
afraid enough to let it break her sleep and pale her cheek to the extent
that this first experience in that line had done.

Indeed it was a memorable night. Gradually the realization that they
were rich sank securely home into the souls of the pair, then they began
to place the money. If we could have looked out through the eyes of
these dreamers, we should have seen their tidy little wooden house
disappear, and two-story brick with a cast-iron fence in front of it
take its place; we should have seen a three-globed gas-chandelier grow
down from the parlor ceiling; we should have seen the homely rag carpet
turn to noble Brussels, a dollar and a half a yard; we should have seen
the plebeian fireplace vanis