Tom Brown, too—you remember Tom? had a wisdom above his years, and rather an ambition to do something extravagant and new. He therefore became discontented with the slow and sure profits of a regular business, and embarked his little fortune, great experience, and goahead-a-tive-ness in a “swift-sure” line. He purchased “_The Patent Steam Sand Excavator and Elevator_,” designed for the very laudable purpose of taking superfluous sand from river-beds, and transferring it to the mortar-beds of the builder. Tom had fortune now by the skirts, and would not let go. People wondered what Tom and his friends were at, ploughing up and down the river with their sand-scow, but supposed that they must have a large contract from government for cleansing the beds of the rivers—taking the initiative in navigation made easy. From the quantity of sand carefully piled upon shore, it was manifest that the business was to be done, and would be, thoroughly. Tom was cautious, close, smiling, and enjoyed highly all manner of jokes, such as “Capt. Sandy Tom”—Tom’s hair was red, but he wasn’t to be—and winked knowingly to the engineer, when he came on board. “It will never do,” said Tom, “to let the secret out to these fellows, until we get our contracts with the builders, or we shouldn’t get half-price. And in order to do that safely, on a large scale, we must first get out the sand.” Bright thought, shrewd Tom! The engine, therefore, went on puffing, but not Tom—he kept quiet, but busy. “If we can throw dust into their eyes,” said he, “until we get _a pile_, we can come the bluff game on the river-side, with a hand full of spades, ha! How do you like that, engineer?” The engineer thought that Tom _was some_, at a pun. The enterprise went on, but it came to a head too, as all enterprises will, somehow; and Tom had spent his availables. But then he had the sand, heaps—yes, mountains of it. “It is time now,” said he, “that I made my contracts with these builders. I’ll offer—let me see—ten thousand loads, at ten per cent. below the market price; that will bring in the funds, and send out the Excavator. They’ll snap at that, in no time. Then twenty thousand, at fifteen per cent. discount—and I’ll contract to supply the market for three years, at twenty-five per cent. off—and _do it_, too! Talk about your Liverpool Steamers, and your Girards improving the river fronts, will you? when you can scoup a fortune out of the dock, while these merchant princes are asleep.” Tom made his terms for the ten thousand loads, “to be delivered as wanted.” He commenced, too, to fulfill his contracts, but the builders “did not _want_ the article at all.” They had contracted for sand—not mud and sand together—and _sand_ they insisted on having.