"See these?" his large features were beaming a noon-day flood of generosity. "Remember that twenty-five thousand you put in of your own spondulix just before Salmon and Byrd went blooy? Well, this is that! Here is a thousand shares of Salmon Oil to cover that, Randolph—and some day you’ll cash in with interest, my boy—big interest too—and don’t you forget it!" I stared at him in silence for a space. But so genuine and sincere seemed his air of righteous triumph that I repressed the Rabelaisian laughter that shook me inwardly and only said: "Thank you, Fred. You’re a—white man." "Don’t say a word!" shouted Fred, thumping me on the back. "It’s all to the good!" "By the way," I could not help adding after a glowing moment, "what is the stock selling at now?" Not for nothing am I the partner of the canny Andrews. "Oh, now," retorted Fred in a tone somewhat injured at my lack of romanticism—"now it ain’t selling at all—yet! It’s not issued yet, see? We haven’t floated it yet. I’m giving you this out of mine. You can’t sell it for a year. This is organizer’s stock. But never fear, my boy, this will net you more than twenty-five thousand some day, or my name’s Hubbard Squash!" There was nothing to do but to hail Fred as a philanthropist and humanitarian and to thank him for his golden-hued certificates,—sweet augury of fabulous riches to come. I keep a small iron safe in my study now to house such precious objects as the Campion Maske and the Caxton that I bring home overnight or longer for study and collation. Very solemnly I clicked the combination lock, opened the safe and carefully, with ritualistic, almost hieratic movements, I reverently put Fred’s certificates into one of the little drawers. Fred watched me attentively. That ceremony seemed to answer his sense of the dramatic. "Yes, sir!" he nodded with great satisfaction, as a period to my movements. "You have put away a little gold mine there, my boy. And you don’t have to work it, either. I’ll do that! All you’ll have to do is to cash the dividend checks. And a word in your ear, Randolph: If I ’phone you and tell you to buy more, just you do it, boy—just you do it!" Without describing to him my momentary mental reservation I, as it were, promised.