"Oh, you'd be a different pair of shoes," said Colonel Pallinder genially. "I'd rather handle a couple of hundred for a man like you than a couple of thousand for some others I could mention. Now I always contend that stocks such as I deal in are a Heaven-sent boon to the man of moderate means. Say you only have a hundred or so. You put it into Ozark Field or--well--yes, you _could_ get half-a-dozen shares of Lone Star. I know a man, a banker in New York, a personal friend, you understand, that I think I could persuade into parting with a little block like that, although they hate to like the devil--but I believe he'd do it for me. Now these things advance so rapidly that in a month or six weeks you could sell out to great advantage--if you didn't want to wait for your dividends, or found the speculation kept you lying awake o' nights," he interpolated, with jovial sarcasm. "Of course, Doctor, I hardly need to tell a man of your intelligence and breadth of view that--um--ah--'there's a tide in the affairs of men,' you know--the time is coming when nobody but the kings of finance will be able to buy and control these shares, they're going up so fast; but if you were already _in_ the _ring_, as I may say----" "I doubt if the kings of finance and I would hit it off very well," said the doctor soberly. Colonel Pallinder laughed uproariously. He slapped his knees and laughed, and wiped his eyes and laughed again. Never had the doctor's dry humour received such appreciation; and not being acutely conscious of having been humorous, he observed the colonel's manifestations of delight with a good deal of interest.