"Naw, it ain't that, Docthor," said Mrs. Maginnis, looking momentarily a little dashed. "Naw, Tim's awful bad with rheumatics this spring. But it's meself that's afther ma-akin me fortune in--in stocks. Yez didn't see me in the Turrner Buildin' th' marrnin'?" Doctor Vardaman's hand paused, rigidly suspended over the money spread on his palm. "What--what's that you say?" he asked abruptly. "I was goin' to ask yez to spake a wurrd to me characther wid Misther--I mane Meejor Pallinder," went on Mrs. Maginnis, happily unconscious. "But he seemed to be in a hurry, an' says I to meself, 'Betther not worry him, Nora Maginnis. Th' Meejor's thrustin' yez anyhow, an' ye're thrustin' him an' iverythin's fair an' square an' aboveboord. 'Taint as if yez were a gurrl goin' to ta-ake a new pla-ace, ye goose,' says I. So I just held me tongue, an' walked off. It's a grand gintleman th' Meejor is intoirely," she finished enthusiastically. The doctor looked at her through a mist. "What have you been doing?" he said at last, striving to speak in his natural voice. He might have spared the trouble; Mrs. Maginnis was only too proud and pleased at his interest, at her own importance. "Ah, thin, I've been investin'--investin' in stocks--or is it shares, I dinnaw?" she said eagerly, lifted her skirt, and drew out a paper, carefully hoarded, from a pocket in her petticoat. She held it toward him. "I got a letther about thim in th' mail, a printed letther, an' ut says: 'Dear Madame, we want to call your attintion----' like that ut begun, Docthor. I can't raymimber th' rest of ut, but yez ought to hear me little Danny, he's got ut by hearrt. Anyway, I was to call on or com-communicate with William Pallinder, Turrner Buildin', like what ut says there. They was iver so many on our sthreet got th' sa--ame, th' Hogans 'crost th' way, an' th' Schwartzes nixt dure but wan, but they ain't anybody wint but me, an' th' Meejor says it's a grreat pity, an' they'll all git left, for they won't be anny more shares or stocks, whichever ut is, sold so low. An' it's just loike pickin' money off of trees, he says, yez git tin for wan. That's four thousan' I'll git, Docthor, for it's four hundred I'm ta-akin out o' th' Buildin' an' Loan, where we been puttin ut for th' last tin years--an' weary wurrk ut is, too, savin' so slow, nothin' loike this, where yez just put in yer money, an' set back an' twiddle yer thumbs! It kapes goin' higher ivery breath yez draw purty near, th' Meejor says. An' whin I give him th' money, he wrote off a grand pa-aper, a receipt, he called ut, an' says he: 'I congrat'late yez, Mrs. Maginnis,' says he. 'It's th' smarrt woman yez arre, an' plucky, too,' says he. 'Nothin' venture, nothin' have, yez may have hearrd th' sayin',' he says. 'That's the way I begun meself,' says he. 'I had just a little, 'twasn't be half so much as yours, an' I put ut in, an' ut kep' a-goin' up an' a-goin' up, an' there I was, like a big fool'--that's what he said,