In the beginning, Aleck had
given the coal speculation a twelvemonth in which to materialize,
and had been loath to grant that this term might possibly be shortened
by nine months. But that was the feeble work, the nursery work,
of a financial fancy that had had no teaching, no experience,
no practice. These aids soon came, then that nine months vanished,
and the imaginary ten-thousand-dollar investment came marching
home with three hundred per cent. profit on its back!
It was a great day for the pair of Fosters. They were speechless
for joy. Also speechless for another reason: after much watching
of the market, Aleck had lately, with fear and trembling, made her
first flyer on a "margin," using the remaining twenty thousand of
the bequest in this risk. In her mind's eye she had seen it climb,
point by point--always with a chance that the market would break
--until at last her anxieties were too great for further endurance
--she being new to the margin business and unhardened, as yet--and she
gave her imaginary broker an imaginary order by imaginary telegraph
to sell. She said forty thousand dollars' profit was enough.
The sale was made on the very day that the coal venture had returned
with its rich freight. As I have said, the couple were speechless.
they sat dazed and blissful that night, trying to realize that they were
actually worth a hundred thousand dollars in clean, imaginary cash.
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