‘Rather.  Why not?’

‘What would the difference be?’

Harrison took an evening paper from his pocket.  ’We deal in rails chiefly, and I don’t profess to keep in touch with the mining market.  We’ll find the quotation here.  By Jove!’ He whistled between his teeth.

‘Well!’ said Frank, and felt his wife’s little warm palm fall upon his hand under the table.

‘The difference is in your favour.’

‘In my favour?’

’Yes, listen to this.  “The mining markets, both the South African and the Australian, opened dull, but grew more animated as the day proceeded, prices closing at the best.  Out crops upon the Rand mark a general advance of one-sixteenth to one-eighth.  The chief feature in the Australian section was a sharp advance of five-eighths in El Dorados, upon a telegram that the workings had been pumped dry.”  Crosse, I congratulate you.’

‘I can really sell them for more than I gave?’

’I should think so.  You have two hundred of them, and a profit of ten shillings on each.’

’Maude, we’ll have the whisky and the soda.  Harrison, you must have a drink.  Why, that’s a hundred pounds.’

‘More than a hundred.’

‘Without my paying anything?’

‘Not a penny.’

‘When does the Exchange open to-morrow?’

‘The rattle goes at eleven.’

‘Well, be there at eleven, Harrison.  Sell them at once.’

‘You won’t hold on and watch the market?’

‘No, no—­I won’t have an easy moment until they are sold.’

’All right, my boy.  You can rely upon me.  You will get a cheque for your balance on Tuesday or Wednesday.  Good evening!  I am so glad that it has all ended well.’

‘And the joke of it is, Maude,’ said her husband, after they had talked over the whole adventure from the beginning.  ’The joke of it is that we have still to find an investment for our original fifty pounds.  I am inclined to put it into Consols after all.’

‘Well,’ said Maude, ‘perhaps it would be the patriotic thing to do.’

Two days later the poor old Broadwood with the squeaky treble and the wheezy bass was banished for ever from The Lindens, and there arrived in its place a ninety-five-guinea cottage grand, all dark walnut and gilding, with notes in it so deep and rich and resonant that Maude could sit before it by the hour and find music enough in simply touching one here and one there, and listening to the soft, sweet, reverberant tones which came swelling from its depths.  Her El Dorado piano, she called it, and tried to explain to lady visitors how her husband had been so clever at business that he had earned it in a single day.  As she was never very clear in her own mind how the thing had occurred, she never succeeded in explaining it to any one else, but a vague and solemn impression became gradually diffused abroad that young Mr. Frank Crosse was a very remarkable man, and that he had done something exceedingly clever in the matter of an Australian mine.