"Well, one day they were talking about investments, and stocks,
and how cheap money was, and how hard it was to know what to do
with it, and I was picking wild-flowers and wondering whether I'd
have my Manton red, or green with gilt stripes, when I heard
something that brought me up like an explosion in the muffler.

"'I know you are pretty well fixed, Fred,' said Mr. Collenquest,
'but I never knew a man yet who couldn't do with forty or fifty
thousand more.'

"'I don't care to get it that way, Bill,' said my father.

"'I tell you Great Western is going to reach six hundred and
fifty,' said Mr. Collenquest.

"I picked daisies fast, but if there ever was a girl all ears,
it was I.

"'I am giving you a bit of inside information that's worth
millions of dollars,' said Mr. Collenquest in that solemn
tone that always gave me the better-girl feeling.

"'My dear old chap,' said papa, 'I don't want you to believe I am
not grateful for this sort of proof of your friendship; and you
mustn't think, because I have strong convictions, that I arrogate
any superior, virtue to myself. Every man must be a law to
himself. I have never speculated and I never will.'

"Mr. Collenquest heaved a regular bishop's sigh, and stopped and