where you know everybody so well gets you into those habits."

"Jim suits me. I hope you'll cultivate the habit."

"Do you? Well, I will. Now, Jim, referrin' to what I was goin' to say,
you, bein' a newspaper man, ought to know everything, but it's pretty
plain you don't know Elkanah Chase. Keep his profits! Why, when a feller
is all but convinced that he knows it all, one little bit of evidence
like that speculation settles it for him conclusive. Elkanah, realizin'
that Wall Street was his apple pie, opened his mouth to swaller it at
one gulp. He put his profits and every other cent he had into another
sure thing tip."

"And won again?"

"No. He lost all that and some more that he borrowed."

"But I thought you said it was the making of him!"

"It was. He had to take a job over at the overalls factory in Ostable.
As a fifteen thousand dollar gentleman, he was pretty average of a mess,
but they tell me he makes middlin' good overalls. Elkanah convinced me
that Wall Street has its good points."

He chuckled. Pearson, relieved, laughed in sympathy. "Has he paid back
the money he borrowed?" he inquired.

"No-o! I guess the creditors'll have to take it out in overalls.
However, it's a satisfaction to some of 'em to watch Chase really work.
I know that gives me MY money's worth."