Si Hawkins has been a good friend to me, and I believe I can say that whenever I've had a chance to put him into a good thing I've done it, and done it pretty cheerfully, too.

I put him into that sugar speculation--what a grand thing that was, if we hadn't held on too long!" True enough; but holding on too long had utterly ruined both of them; and the saddest part of it was, that they never had had so much money to lose before, for Sellers's sale of their mule crop that year in New Orleans had been a great financial success.

If he had kept out of sugar and gone back home content to stick to mules it would have been a happy wisdom.

As it was, he managed to kill two birds with one stone--that is to say, he killed the sugar speculation by holding for high rates till he had to sell at the bottom figure, and that calamity killed the mule that laid the golden egg--which is but a figurative expression and will be so understood.

Sellers had returned home cheerful but empty-handed, and the mule business lapsed into other hands.