“I’ve got money loaned on that quarter at three per cent a month and five after due.  The mortgage has a waiver in it too.  You see, the security was unusually good, and that was why I let him have it so low.”  This was what Mr. Minorkey said at intervals and with some variations, generally adding something like this:  “The day I went to look at that claim, to see whether the security was good or not, I got caught in the rain.  I expected it would kill me.  Well, sir, I was taken that night with a pain—­just here—­and it ran through the lung to the point of the shoulder-blade—­here.  I had to get my feet into a tub of water and take some brandy.  I’d a had pleurisy if I’d been in any other country but this.  I tell you, nothing saved me but the oxygen in this air.  There! there’s a forty that I lent a hundred dollars on at five per cent a month and six per cent after maturity, with a waiver in the mortgage.  The day I came here to see this I was nearly dead.  I had a—­”

Just here the fat gentleman would get desperate, and, by way of preventing the completion of the dolorous account, would break out with:  “That’s Sokaska, the new town laid out by Johnson—­that hill over there, where you see those stakes.  I bought a corner-lot fronting the public square, and a block opposite where they hope to get a factory.  There’s a brook runs through the town, and they think it has water enough and fall enough to furnish a water-power part of the day, during part of the year, and they hope to get a factory located there.  There’ll be a territorial road run through from St. Paul next spring if they can get a bill through the legislature this winter.  You’d best buy there.”

“I never buy town lots,” said Minorkey, coughing despairingly, “never!  I run no risks.  I take my interest at three and five per cent a month on a good mortgage, with a waiver, and let other folks take risks.”

But the hopeful fat gentleman evidently took risks and slept soundly.  There was no hypothetical town, laid out hypothetically on paper, in whose hypothetical advantages he did not covet a share.

“You see,” he resumed, “I buy low—­cheap as dirt—­and get the rise.  Some towns must get to be cities.  I have a little all round, scattered here and there.  I am sure to have a lucky ticket in some of these lotteries.”

[Illustration:  MR. MINORKEY AND THE FAT GENTLEMAN.]

Mr. Minorkey only coughed and shook his head despondently, and said that “there was nothing so good as a mortgage with a waiver in it.  Shut down in short order if you don’t get your interest, if you’ve only got a waiver.  I always shut down unless I’ve got five per cent after maturity.  But I have the waiver in the mortgage anyhow.”