The Market-Place by Harold Frederic
page 63 of 485 (12%)
page 63 of 485 (12%)
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Those must have been extraordinarily interesting
experiences of yours--on the plains. I wish I could have seen something of that part of America when I was there last year. Unfortunately, it didn't come my way." "I thought I remembered your saying you'd been West." Plowden smiled. "I'm afraid I did think it was West at the time. But since my return I've been warned that I mustn't call Chicago West. That was as far as I went. I had some business there, or thought I had. When my father died, that was in 1884, we found among his papers a lot of bonds of some corporation purporting to be chartered by the State of Illinois. Our solicitors wrote several letters, but they could find out nothing about them, and there the matter rested. Finally, last year, when I decided to make the trip, I recollected these old bonds, and took them with me. I thought they might at least pay my expenses. But it wasn't the least good. Nobody knew anything about them. It seems they related to something that was burned up in the Great Fire--either that, or had disappeared before that time. That fire seems to have operated like the Deluge--it cancelled everything that had happened previously. My unhappy father had a genius for that kind of investment. I shall have great pleasure in showing you tomorrow, a very picturesque and comprehensive collection of Confederate Bonds. Their face value is, as I remember it, eighty thousand dollars--that is, sixteen thousand pounds. |
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