“Confound the greedy hypocrite!” said Bob; “does he think we shall let him burke the line for nothing?  No—­no! let him go to the brokers and buy his shares back, if he thinks they are likely to rise.  I’ll be bound he has made a cool five hundred out of them already.”

On the day which succeeded the allocation, the following entry appeared in the Glasgow sharelists:  “Direct Glenmutchkin Railway 15s. 15s. 6d. 15s. 6d. 16s. 15s. 6d. 16s. 16s. 6d. 16s. 6d. 16s. 17s. 18s. 18s. 19s. 6d. 21s. 21s. 22s. 6d. 24s. 25s. 6d. 27s. 29s. 29s. 6d. 30s. 31s.”

“They might go higher, and they ought to go higher,” said Bob, musingly; “but there’s not much more stock to come and go upon, and these two share-sharks, Jobson and Grabbie, I know, will be in the market to-morrow.  We must not let them have the whip-hand of us.  I think upon the whole, Dunshunner, though it’s letting them go dog-cheap, that we ought to sell half our shares at the present premium, while there is a certainty of getting it.”

“Why not sell the whole?  I’m sure I have no objections to part with every stiver of the scrip on such terms.”

“Perhaps,” said Bob, “upon general principles you may be right; but then remember that we have a vested interest in the line.”

“Vested interest be hanged!”

“That’s very well; at the same time it is no use to kill your salmon in a hurry.  The bulls have done their work pretty well for us, and we ought to keep something on hand for the bears; they are snuffing at it already.  I could almost swear that some of those fellows who have sold to-day are working for a time-bargain.”

We accordingly got rid of a couple of thousand shares, the proceeds of which not only enabled us to discharge the deposit loan, but left us a material surplus.  Under these circumstances a two-handed banquet was proposed and unanimously carried, the commencement of which I distinctly remember, but am rather dubious as to the end.  So many stories have lately been circulated to the prejudice of railway directors that I think it my duty to state that this entertainment was scrupulously defrayed by ourselves and not carried to account, either of the preliminary survey, or the expenses of the provisional committee.

Nothing effects so great a metamorphosis in the bearing of the outer man as a sudden change of fortune.  The anemone of the garden differs scarcely more from its unpretending prototype of the woods than Robert M’Corkindale, Esq., Secretary and Projector of the Glenmutchkin Railway, differed from Bob M’Corkindale, the seedy frequenter of “The Crow.”  In the days of yore, men eyed the surtout—­napless at the velvet collar, and preternaturally white at the seams—­which Bob vouchsafed to wear with looks of dim suspicion, as if some faint reminiscence, similar to that which is said to recall the memory of a former state of existence, suggested to them a notion that the garment had once been their own.