no more right to impose his standard of morals upon Conward
than the preacher had to impose an arbitrary belief upon him. And as
he turned the bill in his fingers he noticed that it was for one
hundred dollars. He had thought it was ten.

"I can't take that much," he exclaimed. "It isn't fair."

"Fair enough," said Conward, well pleased that Dave should be impressed
by his generosity. "Fair enough," he repeated. "It's just ten per
cent. of my profit."

"You mean you made a thousand dollars on that deal?"

"Exactly that. And that will look like a peanut to what we are going
to make later on."

"We?"

"Yes. You and me. We're going into partnership."

"But I've nothing to invest. I've only a very little saved up."

"Invest that hundred."

Dave looked at Conward sharply. Was he trifling? No; his eyes were
frank and serious.

"You mean it?"

"Of course. Now, I'll put you on to something, and it's the biggest
thing that has been pulled off yet. There's a section of land lying
right against the city limits that is owned by a fellow over in
England; remittance man who fell heir to an estate and had to go home
to spend it. Well, he has been paying taxes ever since, and is tired
of the 'bally rawnch'; besides, he is busy keeping his property in
England reasonably well spent. I am arranging through a London office
to offer him ten dollars an acre, and I'll bet he jumps at it. I've
arranged for the necessary credits, but there will be some expenses for
cables, etc., and you can put your hundred into that. If we pull it
off--and we will pull it off--we start up in business as Conward &
Elden, or Elden & Conward, which ever sounds better. Boy, there's a
fortune in it."

"What do you figure it's worth?" said Dave, trying to speak easily.
"Twenty-five dollars an acre?"

"Twenty-five dollars an acre!" Conward shouted. "Dave, newspaper
routine has killed your imagination, little as one would expect such a
result, from some of the things the papers print. Twenty-five dollars
an acre! Listen!

"The city boundaries are to be extended--probably will be by the time
this deal goes through. Then it is city property. A street railway
system is to be built, and we'll see that it runs through our land. We
may have to 'grease' somebody, but it's a poor engineer that saves on
grease. Then we'll survey that section into twenty-five foot lots--and
we'll sell them at two hundred dollars each for those nearest