Effingham arrived by appointment at
ten o'clock he had them all arranged and labeled; and in a special
bundle neatly tied with a piece of red tape were what on their face were
securities worth upward of seventy thousand dollars. There were ten of
the beautiful bonds of the Great Lakes and Canadian Southern Railroad
Company with their miniature locomotives and fields of wheat, and ten
equally lovely bits of engraving belonging to the long-since defunct
Bluff Creek and Iowa Central, ten more superb lithographs issued by the
Mohawk and Housatonic in 1867 and paid off in 1882, and a variety of
gorgeous chromos of Indians and buffaloes, and of factories and
steamships spouting clouds of soft-coal smoke; and on the top of all was
a pile of the First Mortgage Gold Six Per Cent obligations of the
Chicago Water Front and Terminal Company--all of them fresh and crisp,
with that faintly acrid smell which though not agreeable to the nostrils
nevertheless delights the banker's soul.
"Ah! Good morning to you, Mrs. Effingham!" Mr. Tutt cried, waving her in
when that lady was announced. "You are not the only millionaire, you
see! In fact, I've stumbled into a few barrels of securities
myself--only I didn't pay anything for them."
"Gracious!" cried Mrs. Effingham, her eyes lighting with astonishment.
"Wherever did you get them? And such exquisite pictures! Look at that
lamb!"
"It ought to have been a wolf!" muttered Mr.
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