“Well, she got the chance,” said Fanny, “and they won’t let out the work except that way; they can get it done so much cheaper.”

“Well, you sha’n’t have it, anyhow,” said Andrew, smiling mysteriously.

“Why, you ain’t goin’ to work again, be you, Andrew?”

“You wait.”

“Well, don’t you talk the way poor Jim did.  Eva wasn’t going to crochet any more hoods, and now Jim’s out of work again.  Eva told me yesterday that she didn’t know where the money was comin’ from.  Jim’s mother owns the place, and it ain’t worth much, anyhow, and they can’t take it from her in her lifetime, even if she was willing to let it go.  Eva said she was goin’ to try again for work herself in the shop.  She thought maybe there might be some kind of a job she could get.  Don’t you talk like Jim did about his good-for-nothin’ mining stock.  I’ve been glad enough that you had sense enough to keep what little we had where ’twas safe.”

“Ain’t it most time for Ellen to be comin’ home?” asked Andrew, to turn the conversation, as he felt somewhat guilty and uncomfortable, though his eyes were jubilant.  He had very little doubt about the success of his venture.  As it is with a man who yields to love for the first time in his life, it was with Andrew in his tardy subjection to the hazards of fortune.  He was a much more devoted slave than those who had long wooed her.  He had always taken nothing but the principal newspaper published in Rowe, but now he subscribed to a Boston paper, the one which had the fullest financial column, though Fanny exclaimed at his extravagance.

Along in midsummer, in the midst of Ellen’s vacation, the mining stock dropped fast a point or more a day.  Andrew’s heart began to sink, though he was far from losing hope.  He used to talk it over with the men who advised him to buy, and come home fortified.

All he had to do was to be patient; the fall meant nothing wrong with the mine, only the wrangle of speculators.  “It’s like a football, first on one side, and then on the other,” said the man, “but the football’s there all the same, and if it’s that you want, you’re all right.”

One night when Nahum Beals and Atkins and John Sargent were in, Andrew repeated this wisdom, concealing the fact of its personal application.  He was anxious to have some confirmation.

“I suppose it’s about so,” he said.

Then John Sargent spoke up.  “No, it is not so,” he said—­“that is, not in many cases.  There isn’t any football—­that’s the trouble.  There’s nothing but the money; a lot of fools have paid for it when it never existed out of their imagination.”

“About so,” said Nahum Beals.  Andrew and Atkins exchanged glances.  Atkins was at once sympathizing and triumphant.

“Lots of those things appear to be doing well, and to be all right,” said Andrew, uneasily.  “The directors keep saying that they are in a prosperous condition, even if the stock drops.”  He almost betrayed himself.