“There you are much mistaken,” replied Cleveland. “The survey has not only been completed, but workmen are upon the lines, and now that I have secured a control in the Board of Directors I mean to have the work prosecuted with vigor. In two months I will have the stock up to par, and in less than a year, as high as thirty per cent. above, and not to be had easily, at that price. My shares cost a hundred thousand dollars. When the price reaches thirty per cent. above par, I will sell, and thus make fifty thousand dollars. After that, those who own the canal may go on with it as they please. Won’t you take ten or twenty thousand dollars worth of the stock? You will find it better than the shipping interest?” “No, thank you, Mr. Cleveland. I never meddle in matters of that kind. Give me straight forward, legitimate trade; not uncertain speculation. I have made my money by commerce, and will certainly not risk it in fancy stocks or ideal cities. I have no taste for your ‘Eldorados’ and ‘Dismal Lake Canals!’ The one will turn your gold to dross, and the other will bury it from your sight in its turbid waters.” “Don’t believe the half of it, Mr. Townsend. Before two years have passed away, I’ll show you a cool hundred thousand or two that I have made by these and one or two other schemes I have in my head.” “If you don’t find yourself a ruined man you may be thankful. As to your canal stock, even its par value will be a fictitious one, for, if the works were completed, they never would pay an interest on the investment. How much more fictitious, then, will be the value at thirty per cent. above par. Whoever buys at such a price will ruin himself.” “I don’t know how that may be. But I do know, that if I can sell the stock that cost me only eighty, for a dollar thirty, I shall make just fifty thousand dollars.” “Yes, _if_; but you are not going to find fools enough in the world to buy a hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of fancy stock at that price.” “Don’t you believe it. I know what has been done, and I know what can be done. There are stocks in the market, not half so promising as this, up, already, to fifteen and twenty per cent. above par.” “Well, from all such uncertain schemes, I hope to be kept free, Mr. Cleveland. Much more, I am satisfied, will be lost than gained, in the end.” “I shall take good care to be a gainer,” said Cleveland. “Trust me for that.” “Gain or loss, I am not to be tempted into the danger of losing what I have made in honest trade, by the hope of great returns from doubtful schemes,” replied Townsend, in a very positive way, and thus closed the matter for the present. CHAPTER IV. SPECULATION.