tid
of doublin' he halved in the mornin' paper 'n' it seemed we 'd got to
buy him all over again or it was good-by Johnny. Me bein' the only one
with money known to be ready 'n' idle they brought the paper to me to
save the share, 'n' I can only say, Mrs. Lathrop, as I wish as you could
have seen their faces when they saw mine. I saw I was a lamb sittin'
among the sharks, but I see, too, as I 'd have to come to time 'n' I got
the money, 'n' then we set down--Mr. Dill, Mr. Shores, 'n' me--to figger
on how much of the share was mine on the new deal. It struck me, 'n' it
strikes me now, 'n' it always will strike me, as any one as owns
two-fifths of a thing and then buys the whole thing over again owns
seven-fifths of it from then on, but Mr. Dill had the face to tell me to
my face as it wa'n't so at all. He figgered the share at 100 'n' us paid
down at 50 'n' me all together as aggravatin' up to 45, 'n' I could only
sit starin' 'n' stark ravin' dumb to see where he would come out after
that. I did n't say nothin' of what I felt to him or Mr. Shores, for the
very good reason as I wanted to save all my feelin's for Mr. Kimball,
but I tell you that a volcano gettin' itself made in the beginnin' is
floatin' lily-pads beside the inside of me that hour.

"I went down-town that afternoon 'n' I aired myself pretty thoroughly
over the whole town, I can assure you. Mr. Allen said I 'd better pocket
my loss 'n' give up dabblin' in stocks, but I did n't see no great sense
in what he said. I did n't have nothin' to pocket, everything was
gone,--'n' so far as dabblin' goes I wa'n't dabblin', I was in up to my
nose. But Mr. Kimball come out as brassy as a bass-drum 'n' showed me a
picture of wheat layin' on his back in bed takin' a tonic with four
doctors doin' up his room work for him. The doctors was all millionaires
on that stock list of railroads 'n' I counted on their knowin' what they
were givin' him, so I come home quite a little easier, 'n' that night I
slept like a ton of hay. But the next day!--my Lord alive, you remember
the next day, don't you, Mrs. Lathrop, 'n' it must have been arsenic as
them four had put in his bottle, for I was up in the garret makin' a
thistle-down pillow 'n' there come Ed tearin' up on his bicycle to tell
me as I must stick in ten dollars more on a margin. 'On a what?' I
hollered from the window. 'On a margin,' he hollered from under the
porch. Well, really, Mrs. Lathrop, I do believe if he had n't been