He listened at first without much
attention, but the man to whom he listened was wily and clever, and
after he was in bed that night the artist's brain was busy planning how
to raise money to invest in Princeton Platinum.
"I never saw such luck as yours," Snaffle observed admiringly. "The way
you filled that spade flush on that last hand was a miracle. It is just
that sort of luck that runs State street and Wall street."
Fenton smiled to himself in the darkness, the proposition was so
manifestly absurd, but he was already bitten by the mania for
speculation, and when once this madness infects a man's brain the most
improbable causes will increase the disease. Snaffle, of course, was
too shrewd to ask his companion to buy Princeton Platinum stock, and
indeed declared that although he had charge of putting it upon the
market, he was reluctant to part with a single share of it. He added
with magnanimous frankness, that all mining stock was dangerous,
especially for one who did not thoroughly understand it.
But his negatives, as he intended, were more effective than
affirmatives would have been, and the bait had been safely swallowed by
the unlucky fish for whom the astute speculator angled. Fenton had
invited him to the club to be eaten, but the wily visitor secretly
regarded the money he lost at the poker table as a paying investment,
believing that in the end it was not the bones of plump Erastus Snaffle
which were destined to be picked.
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