here with intolerable luster; but the blear-eyed merchant did not come out bright by contrast; he had taken the local color.  You could see him and that was all.  He was like a partridge in a furrow.  A snuff-colored man; coat rusty all but the collar, and that greasy; poor as its color was, his linen had thought it worth emulating; blackish nails, cotton wipe, little bald place on head, but didn’t shine for the same reason the windows didn’t.  Mr. Clinton approached this “dhirrrty money,” this rusty coin, in the spirit of flunkyish.

“Sir,” said he, in a low reverential tone, “this party is disposed to purchase a few hundred acres in the colonies.”

Mr. Rich looked up from his desk and pointed with a sweep of his pen to the walls.

“There are the maps; the red crosses are my land.  They are numbered.  Refer to the margin of map, and you will find the acres and the latitude and longitude calculated to a fraction.  When you have settled in what part of the world you buy, come to me again; time is gold.”

And the blear-eyed merchant wrote and sealed and filed and took no notice of his customers.  They found red crosses in several of the United States, in Canada, in Borneo, in nearly all the colonies, and as luck would have it they found one small cross within thirty miles of Bathurst, and the margin described it as five hundred acres.  Mr. Meadows stepped toward the desk.

“I have found a small property near Bathurst.”

“Bathurst? where is that?”

“In Australia.”

“Suit?”

“If the price suits.  What is the price, sir?”

“The books must tell us that.”

Mr. Rich stretched out his arm and seized a ledger, and gave it Meadows.

“I have but one price for land, and that is five per cent profit on my outlay.  Book will tell you what it stands me in, you can add five per cent to that, and take the land away or leave it.”

With this curt explanation, Mr. Rich resumed his work.

“It seems you gave five shillings an acre, sir,” said Mr. Clinton.  “Five times five hundred shillings, one hundred and twenty-five pounds.  Interest at five per cent, six pounds five.”

“When did I buy it?” asked Mr. Rich.

“Oh, when did you buy it, sir?”

Mr. Rich snatched the book a little pettishly, and gave it to Meadows.

“You make the calculation,” said he; “the figures are all there.  Come to me when you have made it.”

The land had been bought twenty-seven years and some months ago.  Mr. Meadows made the calculation in a turn of the hand and announced it.  Rich rang a hand bell.  Another snuffy figure with a stoop and a bald head and a pen came through a curtain.

“Jones, verify that calculation.”

“Penny, halfpenny, twopence, penny, halfpenny, twopence.  Mum, mum!  Halfpenny wrong, sir.”

“There is a halfpenny wrong!” cried Mr. Rich to Meadows, with a most injured air.