stockholders distrust or dislike the president and are willing to sell.
Some of these ask only $50 a share for their holdings; the owners of 100
shares want as much as $92; the average price asked is $76. By buying out
all the president's enemies, which you can now do beyond question, you
would secure a bare majority of the stock. But $92 a share seems to you
excessive; that is, you think that by working quietly among the
president's friends you can get 100 shares at $77 or thereabouts and thus
save approximately $1500. On the other hand, should your dealings with the
friends of the president give him premature warning, he might stop the
sales by these friends and himself begin buying from his enemies, and thus
make your purchase of a majority of the stock impossible. Is the $1500 you
would save worth the risk you would be obliged to take? You call for
instructions.

(b) You are telegraphing a metropolitan paper the results of a
Congressional election. Philput, the Republican candidate, leads in the
cities, from which returns are now complete. Wilkins, the Democratic
candidate, leads in the country, from only certain districts of which--
those nearest the cities--returns have been heard. If the present
proportionate division of the rural vote is maintained for the total,
Philput will be elected by a plurality of three hundred votes. Philput
asserts that the proportions will hold. Wilkins points out, however, that
he is relatively stronger in the more remote districts and predicts that
he will have a plurality of seven hundred votes. Smallbridge, an
independent candidate, is apparently making a better race in the country
than in the city, but he is so weak in both places that the ballots cast
for him can scarcely affect the outcome unless the margin of victory is
infinitesimal.

7. Compress 6a and 6b each into a telegram of not more than ten words.