ant you and the other directors
to increase the capital stock of the Elmer Mill and Ferry Company, and
let me take the extra shares."

"Oh, Uncle Christopher!"

"Wait, my boy, I haven't begun yet. You see, as I've told you before,
I'm getting old and fee--not a word, sir!--feeble, and my old bones
begin to complain a good deal at the cold of these Maine winters.
Besides, all the folks that I think most of in this world have gone to
Floridy to live, and it isn't according to nater that a man's body
should be in one place while his heart's in another. Consequently it
looks as if I had a special call to have a business that'll take my
body where my heart is once in a while. Now my business is the lumber
business, and always will be; and from what I know and what you tell
me, it looks as if there was enough of that sort of business to be done
in Floridy to amuse my declining years."

"Yes, indeed there is, uncle."

"Well, that p'int being settled, and you, as President of the Elmer
Mills, being willing to use your influence to have me made a partner in
that concern--"

"Why, of course, uncle--"

"No 'of course' about it, young man; remember there's a Board of
Directors to be consulted. Friendship is friendship, and business is
business, and sometimes when one says 'Gee' t'other says 'Haw.' Having
secured the influence of the president of the company, however, I'm
willing to risk the rest. And now for my scheme.

"Supposing, for the sake of argument, that I am made one of the
proprietors of the Elmer Mills. In that case I want them to be big
mills. I'm too old a man to be fooling my limited time away on little
mills; consequently, I propose to buy a first-class outfit of machinery
for a big saw-mill, ship it to Wakulla, Floridy, and let it represent
my shares of Elmer Mill Company stock. Moreover, as the schooner Nancy
Bell, owned by the subscriber, is just now waiting for a charter, I
propose to load her with the said mill machinery, and whatever articles
you may think the Wakulla colony to be most in need of, and despatch
her to the St. Mark's River, Floridy.

"Moreover, yet again, as she is now without a captain, Eli Drew having
gone into deep-water navigation, I propose to offer the command of the
Nancy Bell to Captain Bill May, as his ship won't be ready for some
months yet.

"And, moreover, for the third time, I further propose to invite Mr.
Mark Elmer, Jun., President of the Elmer Mill and Ferry Company of