only grin and bear it. Suppose you write down, and get the true
data from the various places where the I. & G. N. touches, and
then show the true source, or the real 'revival' that has given
the festive George such a boost in his cash box."

In the first place, "the business revival" has not "added
$15,000,000 to the value of the Gould securities"--it is a
political falsehood which George can be depended upon to promptly
repudiate when the tax assessor calls around to tender
congratulations. It is eleven to seven that Georgie assures him
that the Gould estate is in a very bad way, that only by the most
heroic self-sacrifices in this period of business depression can
he succeed in remaining solvent; that there was a slight advance
in railway values while crops were moving, only to be succeeded
by a doleful slump, caused by the high tariff, which cuts so
dreadfully into tonnage. If he refrains from putting up some such
game of talk as that I'll take up a collection among the
bootblacks of Texas to help pay his taxes. Fifteen millions in
three weeks! Oh my! Since "Count" Castellane pulled one leg off
the estate it is no larger than it was when old Jay went to
He-aven. Now Jay was an honorable man--at least he wouldn't steal
the buttons off your undershirt while you had it on, and hotel
keepers; did not take the precaution to chain his knife and fork
to the table; but in his palmiest days he paid taxes on but
$75,000 worth of personal property--railway securities and
"sich." Heavy crops, for which Providence and the industry of the
American people are alone responsible, have added somewhat to the
present earning power of railway properties, but it is doubtful,
if the total mileage and equipment owned by the Goulds would sell
for as much actual cash as before the election of McKinley. The