tendent, in fact, to develop the mine
by the spending of its earnings, so that the stock quoted at 112 was
finally saddled with an assessment of $50 per share. Another assessment
of $50 to enable the Superintendent to proceed to Russia and Spain and
examine into the workings of the quicksilver mines there, and also a
general commission to the gifted and scientific Pillageman to examine
into the various component parts of quicksilver, and report if it could
not be manufactured from ordinary sand-stone by steam or electricity,
speedily brought the other stockholders to their senses. It was at
this time the good fellow "Tom," the serious-minded "Dick," and the
speculative but fortunate "Harry," brokers of the Great Capitalist,
found it convenient to buy up, for the Great Capitalist aforesaid, the
various other shares at great sacrifice.

I fear that I have bored my readers in thus giving the tiresome details
of that ingenuous American pastime which my countrymen dismiss in their
epigrammatic way as the "freezing-out process." And lest any reader
should question the ethics of the proceeding, I beg him to remember that
one gentleman accomplished in this art was always a sincere and direct
opponent of the late Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler.

But for once the Great Master of Avarice had not taken into sufficient
account the avarice of others, and was suddenly and virtuously shocked
to learn that an application for a patent for certain lands, known as
the "Red-Rock Rancho," was about to be offered before the United
States Land Commission. This claim covered his mining property. But
the information came quietly and secretly, as all of the Great Master's
information was obtained, and he took the opportunity to sell out his
clouded title and his proprietorship to the only remaining member of
the original "Blue Mass Company," a young fellow of pith, before
many-tongued rumor had voiced the news far and wide. The blow was a
heavy one to the party left in possession. Saddled by the enormous debts
and expenses of the Great Capitalist, with a credit now further injured
by the defection of this lucky magnate, who was admired for his skill in
anticipating a loss, and whose relinquishment of any project meant ruin
to it, the single-handed, impoverished possessor of the mine, whose
title was contested, and whose reputation was yet to be made,--poor
Biggs, first secretary and only remaining officer of the "Blue Mass
Company," looked ruefully