"If you'd take twelve and a half per cent. eight times you'd have it all," retorted Sam. "That's why I quit. I stood to lose two hundred dollars on a seven-point drop, or win a hundred and seventy-five on an eight-point raise. When I finally figured out that I had the tweezers into my hair going and coming, I didn't wish any more." "But suppose I'd offer you a chance to stand on the other side of the counter and take part of the change?" "I'd let you stand right here and talk a while. What's the matter?" "Haven't capital enough," explained Wix. "I think I refused to take a trade of yours one time, just because I had to play safe. I had to be in position to pay off all my losses or quit business." "How much are you increasing?" asked Glidden, interested. "A twenty-five-thousand-dollar stock company: two hundred and fifty shares at a hundred dollars each." "I might take a share or two," said Sam. "You'll take twenty," declared Wix, quite sure of himself. "I want four incorporators besides myself, and I want you to be one of them." "Is that getting me the stock any cheaper?" "Fifty per cent.; two thousand dollars' worth for a thousand. After we five incorporators are in we'll raise the price to par and not sell a share for a cent less." "How much do you get out of this?" Sam asked, with a leer of understanding. "Ten per cent. for selling the stock, and have the new company buy over the present one for ten thousand dollars' worth of shares." [Illustration: "Sam," he said, "I want you to invest"] "I thought so," said Glidden with a grin. "Fixtures, established business and good will, I suppose." Wix chuckled. "You put it in the loveliest words," he admitted. "You're a bright young man," said Glidden admiringly. "You'd better pay for those fixtures and put in the whole business at five hundred." "What do you suppose I'm enlarging the thing for, except to increase my income?" Wix demanded. "With ten thousand dollars' worth of stock I'd get only two-fifths of the profit, when I've been getting it all heretofore. As a matter of fact, I'm doing pretty well not to try to capture the majority." They both laughed upon this, and Glidden capitulated. Within forty-eight hours Wix had his four directors, all ex-traders who would rather make money than gamble, and each willing to put in a thousand dollars. As soon as they were incorporated they paid Wix his hundred shares for the old business, and that developing financier started out to sell the balance of the stock, on commission. It was an easy task, for his fellow-directors did all the advertising for him. Practically all he had to do was to deliver the certificates and collect. It was while he was engaged in this pleasant occupation that he went to Gilman with a blank certificate for twenty-five shares. "I think you said, Gilman, that if you could get your remaining twenty-five hundred dollars out of the La Salle you'd be satisfied, didn't you?"