"What an intelligent lad it is!--Good head there. Oh, he'll do credit to his great fortune, brother," said Uncle Jack approvingly. "True, my boy. But in the meanwhile we could fill the ground, as they do in Kent, with gooseberries and currants, or onions and cabbages. Nevertheless, considering we are not great capitalists, I am afraid we must give up a share of our profits to diminish our outlay. So, harkye, Pisistratus--(look at him, brother--simple as he stands there, I think he's born with a silver spoon in his mouth)--harkye, now to the mysteries of speculation. Your father shall quietly buy the land, and then, presto! we will issue a prospectus, and start a company. Associations can wait five years for a return. Every year, meanwhile, increases the value of the shares. Your father takes, we say, fifty shares at £50 each, paying only an instalment of £2 a share. He sells 35 shares at cent per cent. He keeps the remaining 15, and his fortune's made all the same; only it's not quite so large as if he had kept the whole concern in his own hands. What say you now, brother Caxton? 'Visne edere pomum?' as we used to say at school." "I don't want a shilling more than I have got," said my father, resolutely. "My wife would not love me better; my food would not nourish me more; my boy would not, in all probability, be half so hardy, or a tenth part so industrious; and----" "But," interrupted Uncle Jack, pertinaciously, and reserving his grand argument for the last, "the good you would confer on the community--the progress given to the natural productions of your country, the wholesome beverage of cider, brought within cheap reach of the labouring classes. If it was only for your sake, should I have urged this question? should I now? is it in my character? But for the sake of the public! mankind! of our fellow-creatures! Why, sir, England could not get on if gentlemen like you had not a little philanthropy and speculation."