Now,' I said, for I wanted to test the fellow, 'tell me what that means ?' Would you believe me, he looked me right in the face in that stupid way of his, and he said, 'I don't know!'" "He said he didn't know!" repeated the listener contemptuously; "the man is a damn fool!" * * * * * The reason of all this was that the results of the researches of the professor of geology were being whispered among the directorate of the Erie Auriferous.

And the directors and chief shareholders were busily performing the interesting process called unloading.

Nor did ever a farmer of Cahoga County in haying time with a thunderstorm threatening, unload with greater rapidity than did the major shareholders of the Auriferous.

Mr.Lucullus Fyshe traded off a quarter of his stock to an unwary member of the Mausoleum Club at a drop of thirty per cent, and being too prudent to hold the rest on any terms, he conveyed it at once as a benefaction in trust to the Plutorian Orphans' and Foundlings' Home; while the purchaser of Mr.Fyshe's stock, learning too late of his folly, rushed for his lawyers to have the shares conveyed as a gift to the Home for Incurables.
Mr.Asmodeus Boulder transferred his entire holdings to the Imbeciles' Relief Society, and Mr.Furlong, senior, passed his over to a Chinese mission as fast as pen could traverse paper.
Down at the office of Skinyer and Beatem, the lawyers of the company, they were working overtime drawing up deeds and conveyances and trusts in perpetuity, with hardly time to put them into typewriting.

Within twenty-four hours the entire stock of the company bid fair to be in the hands of Idiots, Orphans, Protestants, Foundlings, Imbeciles, Missionaries, Chinese, and other unfinancial people, with Tomlinson the Wizard of Finance as the senior shareholder and majority control.