It all sounds fabulous, I admit, but there are the figures, my dear lady, in black and white, and figures cannot lie." "I'll write to my bankers about it this very night," said Aunt Charlotte, folding up the prospectus and putting it carefully into her pocket.

"It's evidently not a chance to be missed, and I'm most grateful to you, dear Mr Sheepshanks, for putting it in my way." "Always delighted to be of service to you--as far as my poor judgment can avail," the vicar assured her with becoming modesty.

"Ah, it's wonderful when one thinks of the teeming riches that lie around us, only waiting to be utilised.

There _was_ another scheme I thought of for you--a scheme for raising the sunken galleons in the Spanish main, and recovering the immense treasures that are now lying, safe and sound, at the bottom of the sea.

Curious that both enterprises should be connected with salt water, eh?
And the prospectus was headed with a most appropriate text--'The Sea shall give up her Dead.' That rather appealed to me, do you know.