I hope you have taken a lease." "I have an option till to-morrow." "Then close it.

I suppose you have brought my letters of credit ?" "That," said he in formal lawyer tone, "brings me back to the news which, as your man of affairs, I was trying to break to you when you thought, as a friend, I was trying to propose." "What news ?" "You will recall that the money with which I was to buy your letters of credit was money which I was to draw for you, to-day, as dividends on the stock you hold in the New York and New England Railroad." "Certainly--though I do not see the drift of your remarks." "And I hardly need remind you that the bulk of your fortune is invested in this railroad." "A perfectly good stock, I believe," Mrs.De Peyster commented.
"Perfectly good--perfectly sound," Judge Harvey agreed.

"But there has existed a certain possibility in the company's affairs for some time of which I hesitated to inform you.

I did not wish to give you any unnecessary concern, which would have been the case if I had spoken to you and if the situation had terminated happily." "And what is the situation to which you refer ?" "You are doubtless aware that all the railroads have been complaining about bad business, owing to increased wages on the one side and governmental regulation of rates on the other.

That's the way the officers explain it; but the truth is, the roads have been abominably mismanaged." "Yes, I have vaguely heard something about bad business," said Mrs.De Peyster with a bored air.