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Lenox appeared so happy it seemed really a pity to wilt his enthusiasm: he had been beaten so many times that the prediction of failure was a familiar knell to him. But Jack had no time to waste in talk of any kind, and at once went into my room to study. "Never mind Jack," said Harry: "he is a born croaker. I dare say the silver-mine is made of gold. How about the stock in the ---- Railroad that your wife holds, Mr. Lenox?" And we both laughed at the old joke. Mr. Lenox smiled furtively: "It was never safe to trust such a secret to scatter-brains like yourselves. But don't you know about the great defalcation? Brown, the president of the road, absconded with over a million of dollars, and they have not paid a single dividend in three years. You ought to hear my wife go on about it." "But you have an easy time: you didn't mind Brown's embezzlement," said Harry. "What a stroke of luck for you! You can buy back your wife's ten shares at a low figure, and have a good conscience the rest of your life." "By Jove, Harry! you have given me an idea. Just as soon as this new stock of mine gets above par I will sell out, reinvest and put the certificates in my wife's bureau-drawer. I should breathe more freely, there is no doubt of it. I confess to you, boys, it's a deuce of a life to keep a secret from a woman, she has you at such a disadvantage. Yes, on my honor, I'll buy in some of that stock: it's utterly worthless for years to come, and there must be thousands and thousands of shares of it in the market. Yes, I will do it as soon as I have made two hundred per cent. on my silver-mine. Yet it does seem a pity--" and he gave us a prudent nod--"to put money into such a broken-down concern." "But you are as rich as Croesus," remarked Harry, mixing his colors meanwhile. "It must be awfully jolly to take two thousand in one's pocket and go out and buy a silver-mine." "The fact is," said Mr. Lenox confidentially, "that old Raymond has shelled out at last. I wrote to him, but he took no notice; so I induced Georgy to send a note to the little girl at The Headlands, and she somehow persuaded her grandfather to let me have three thousand dollars. He sent it in a way which robbed the courtesy of charm; but he is an old man, and for the sake of little Helen I did not repay him in kind." "Why, what did he do?" "Sent me his check pinned to a scrap of paper on which he had scrawled, 'A fool and his money are soon parted.' O
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