On Mr. Irons's return from New York, he had been astounded and enraged
to find that he had been outwitted by the combined cleverness of Mrs.
Sampson and the stupidity of his clerk, and that he was in possession
of eleven thousand shares of Princeton Platinum stock. For seven
thousand shares he had paid at the rate of three dollars, and the stock
was now quoted at one and three eighths asked, with no particular
reason for supposing that the putting of even half his shares on the
market would not reduce it to zero. Irons blasphemed prodigiously and
emphatically, discharged his clerk, and went to call on Mrs. Sampson,
whom he threatened with all sorts of condign punishments if she did not
disgorge her ill-gotten gains. The widow received him affably, and
laughed in his face at this proposal, a course of action which won his
respect more fully than any other which she could have chosen. There
was evidently nothing left but to do what he could with the market, and
by methods best known to himself he succeeded in bulling the stock so
that he was able to unload at three dollars and a half.
The brokers in whose hands Fenton had left his stock had been watching
their opportunity, and closed it out at the top of the market, a
consummation for which Fenton had so devoutly longed that it seemed
cruel he could not have lived to see it.
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