'But what have you purchased for me, Scott?' 'Forty shares in the Mary Jane.' 'Then you may undo the bargain again, for I don't want them, and shall not take them.' 'You need not be a bit uneasy, my dear fellow. I've bought them at a little over £5, and they'll be saleable to-morrow at double the money--or at any rate to-morrow week. But what's your objection to them?' 'In the first place, I've got no money to buy shares.' 'That's just the reason why you should buy them; having no money, you can't but want some; and here's your way to make it. You can have no difficulty in raising £200.' 'And in the next place, I should not think of buying mining shares, and more especially these, while I am engaged as I now am.' 'Fal de ral, de ral, de ral! That's all very fine, Mr. Commissioner; only you mistake your man; you think you are talking to Mr. Neverbend.' 'Well, Scott, I shan't have them.' 'Just as you please, my dear fellow; there's no compulsion. Only mark this; the ball is at your foot now, but it won't remain there. 'There is a tide in the affairs of men'--you know the rest; and you know also that 'tide and time wait for no man.' If you are contented with your two or three hundred a year in the Weights and Measures, God forbid that I should tempt you to higher thoughts--only in that case I have mistaken my man.' 'I must be contented with it, if I can get nothing better,' said Tudor, weakly. 'Exactly; you must be contented--or rather you must put up with it--if you can get nothing better. That's the meaning of contentment all the world over. You argue in a circle. You must be a mere clerk if you cannot do better than other mere clerks. But the fact of your having such an offer as that I now make you, is proof that you can do better than others; proves, in fact, that you need not be a mere clerk, unless you choose to remain so.' 'Buying these shares might lose me all that I have got, and could not do more than put a hundred pounds or so in my pocket.' 'Gammon--' 'Could I go back and tell Sir Gregory openly that I had bought them?' 'Why, Tudor, you are the youngest fish I ever met, sent out to swim alone in this wicked world of ours. Who the deuce talks openly of his speculations? Will Sir Gregory tell you what shares he buys? Is not every member of the House, every man in the Government, every barrister, parson, and doctor, that can collect a hundred pounds, are not all of them at the work? And do they talk openly of the matter? Does the bishop put it into his charge, or the parson into his sermon?' 'But they would not be ashamed to tell their friends.'