In the meantime the affairs of the concern progressed delightfully. For the regulation fee, the Secretary of State, after some perfunctory inquiries, permitted the "Trust Company" to increase its capitalization to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Even before the certificates were delivered from the printer's, however, that month's issue of "The Friendly Hand" bore the news to the five hundred members of the Order and to four thousand five hundred prospective members, of the truly unprecedented combination of philanthropy and profit. Somewhere the indefatigable Wallingford had secured a copy of a most unusual annual statement of a large and highly successful insurance company, of the flat-rate variety and of a similar sounding name. In the smallest type to be found he had printed over this: READ THIS REPORT OF THE PROVIDENT FRIENDS TO ITS STOCKHOLDERS Then followed direct quotations, showing that the Provident Friends had a membership of a quarter of a million; that it had paid out in death claims an enormous amount; that it had a surplus fund expressed in a staggering array of figures; that its enrollment had increased fifty thousand within the past year. Striking sentences, such as: WE HAVE JUST DECLARED A THIRTY PER CENT. DIVIDEND were displayed in big, black type, the whole being spread out in such form that readers ignorant of such matters would take this to be a sworn statement of the present condition of the Order of Friendly Hands; and they were invited to subscribe for its golden stock at the rate of twenty-five dollars a share! The prudent members who were providing for their families after death could now also participate in the profits of this commendable investment during life, and at a rate which, while not guaranteed, could be expected, in the light of past experience, to pay back the capital in a trifle over three years, leaving it still intact and drawing interest. But this, dear friends and coworkers in a noble cause, was not just a hard, money-grinding proposition. The revenue derived from the sale of stock was to be expended in the further expansion of the Order, until it should blanket the world and carry the blessings of protection to the widows and orphans throughout the universe! Never before in the history of finance had it been made possible for men of modest means to further a charitable work, a noble work, a work appealing to all the highest aspirations of humanity and creditable to every finest instinct of the human heart, and at the same time to reap an enormous profit! And the price was only twenty-five dollars a share--while they lasted! Wallingford had secured the data and supplied the human frailty ideas for this flaming announcement, but Clover had put it together, and, as he examined the proof sheet, the latter gentleman leaned back in his chair with profound self-esteem.