"But you have capital of your own, independent of the partnership," said Slyk; "you, and your mother also. I beg your pardon for seeming to interfere in your concerns, my dear fellow; but I am not one to stand by quietly, and see a young friend, just left to his own guidance, let slip so splendid an opportunity as this of making thirty per cent. of his spare capital. I have a great regard for your mother too, and would fain see that her worldly concerns do not suffer from her being deprived of her husband, my very good friend. If she were here, with three thousand guilders in her right hand, I would merely say, 'here is our ground, there is the sea,' and leave the rest to her own good sense." Heins looked about him for some time before he made any reply, and then lamented that this soil was not already fit for pasturage, as some German and Danish cattle were on the point of arriving to be fattened; and it would have been one way of aiding the scheme to deposit them on this spot. Jakob explained that there was a farm at a little distance which belonged, he declared, to himself. He would say no more than that any advances made by Heins might be repaid in the feed of these cattle, and thus made independent of whatever risk might be thought to attend the grand scheme. Long did Heins pace to and fro on the dyke, pondering his resources, and reconsidering the letter of his partner, which was as follows:-- "I am sorry that your absence occurs just at this time, however short it may be: for every day may make so important a difference in the course of exchange as may materially affect our commercial concerns. How long the exchange may remain as it is there is no saying, as there is a rumour of the enforcement of tithe on the cultivation of madder in Great Britain; and this will bring the madder of a Presbyterian country like ours, which pays no tithe, into the market, at an advantage which must tempt those merchants to export largely who are now importing. If, besides this, certain relaxations of monopoly which are talked of should take place, to the advantage of Dutch commerce, our exports to Great Britain will be so abundant as presently to turn the course of exchange. It is our part, then, while we can get bills cheap, to urge our business to the fair limits of our capital, that we may have the fewer debts to pay to England when that competition for bills arises which must certainly follow the present abundance. I did business with Visscher this afternoon, as you were not here to do it for me. He is too busy (making his fortune, I suppose, out of the variations of exchange) to have a word to say to his old friends till after 'Change hours. I fancy that the bills on England which have fallen in value bring a pretty profit into the broker's pocket when transmitted to Paris, where the exchange is greatly in favour of England. Visscher must be making much more by this state of things than he lost a while ago by the variation