e city of Dibbletonborough. A city ought to be good
security for thirty thousand dollars?"

"It is not, nevertheless, in this case. The speculators who bought of me
in 1835 laid out their town, built a hotel, a wharf, and a warehouse,
and then had an auction. They sold four hundred lots, each twenty-five
feet by a hundred, regulation size, you see, at an average of two
hundred and fifty dollars, receiving one-half, or fifty thousand
dollars, down, and leaving the balance on mortgage. Soon after this, the
bubble burst, and the best lot at Dibbletonborough would not bring,
under the hammer, twenty dollars. The hotel and the warehouse stand
alone in their glory, and will thus stand until they fall, which will
not be a thousand years hence, I rather think."

"And what is the condition of the town-plot?"

"Bad enough. The landmarks are disappearing; and it would cost any man
who should attempt it, the value of his lot, to hire a surveyor to find
his twenty-five by a hundred."

"But your mortgage is good?"

"Ay, good in one sense; but it would puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer to
foreclose it. Why, the equitable interests in that town-plot, people the
place of themselves. I ordered my agent to commence buying up the
rights, as the shortest process of getting rid of them; and he told me
in the very last letter I received, that he had succeeded in purchasing
the titles to three hundred and seventeen of the lots, at an average
price of ten dollars. The remainder, I suppose, will have to be
absorbed."

"Absorbed! That is a process I never heard of, as applied to land."

"There is a good deal of it done, notwithstanding, in America. It is
merely including within your own possession, adjacent land for which no
claimant appears. What can I do? No owners are to be found; and then my
mortgage is always a title. A possession of twenty years under a
mortgage is as good as a deed in fee-simple, with full covenants of
warranty, barring minors and _femmes covert_."

"You did better by Lilacsbush?"

"Ah, _that_ was a clean transaction, and has left no drawbacks.
Lilacsbush being on the island of Manhattan, one is sure there will be a
town there, some day or other. It is true, the property lies quite eight
miles from the City Hall; nevertheless, it has a value, and can always
be sold at something near it. Then the plan of New York is made and
recorded, and one can find his lots. Nor can any man say when the town
will not reach Kingsbri