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gold just now, especially with fifteen thousand dollars: if we had a million, it might be worth talking of. I really don't just know where to put our little fifteen thousand dollars to make it pull the hardest. Suppose we run down and have a talk with our legal friend, Mr. H----" (the same who had advised us relative to the "lode").
"All right."
We went down. Our gentleman had just come in. Raed stated our case. H---- heard it.
"So you want to speculate a little," said he pleasantly. "Good boys. That's right. Won't work yourselves; won't even let your money work honestly: want to set it to cheating somebody. Well, you must remember that the biter sometimes gets bitten."
"Oh! we don't want anything hazardous," explained Raed.
"Yes, I see," remarked Mr. H----; "something not too sharp, sort of over and above board, and tolerably safe."
"That's about our style," remarked Wade.
"Well, I'm doing a little something by way of Back-Bay land speculation. That would be near home for you; and you can go in your whole pile, or only a thousand, just as you choose."
"Back-bay land," said Kit. "Where is this Back-bay land?"
"Well, there you've got me," replied Mr. H----, laughing. "It would be rather hard telling where the land is. In fact, the land is most all water. The land part has yet to be made. There's room to make it, however. I mean out in the Back Bay, north-west of the city here, along the Charles River. City is growing rapidly out that way. We have got up a sort of company of share-owners of the space out on the tidal marsh. These shares can be bought and sold. As I said, the city is growing in that direction. There's a steady rise in value per square foot. Value may double in a year. Put in ten thousand now, and it may be worth twenty by next year at this time."
"But is there really any bottom to it?" asked Wade.
"Oh, yes! geologists think there's bottom out there somewhere. But we shareholders don't trouble ourselves about the bottom."
"I mean bottom to the company," interrupted Raed.
"Yes, yes. Well, that's another matter. But then you will be dealt honestly with, if that's what you mean by bottom. Of course, you must take the risk with the rest of us. You put in ten thousand: and, if you want me to do so, I will be on the lookout for your interests; tell you when to sell, you know; and, in case there should be like to come a crash, I'll tip you a wink when to stand from under."
"Then you advise us to invest in this?" queried Raed.
"Well, I should say that it was as well as you can do."
"What say, fellows?" Raed inquired, turning to us.
"Perhaps we could not do better," said Kit. "I suppose this property comes under the head of real estate; and real estate is generally considered safe property. You call it real estate, don't you, Mr. H----?"
"Yes, yes; as near real estate as anything. It's kind of amphibious; half real estate certainly,--more'n half when the tide is out."
So we purchased that afternoon, through Mr. H----, ten thousand dollars' worth of Back-bay land. Of our remaining five thousand dollars, we put three thousand dollars into 5-20 bonds, and deposited the remaining two thousand dollars ready for immediate use. That was about all we did that day.
In the evening we went to hear Parepa, who was then in town; and the next morning met at nine, at Raed's again, to pow-wow further concerning the yacht.
"It is too late," said Kit after we were again snug in the back parlor, "to get a yacht built and launched so as to make a voyage this summer. Such a vessel as we want can't be built and got off the stocks in much, if any, less than a year. What are we to do meanwhile?--wait for it?"
"No," said Wade.
"No," said Raed.
"What then?" asked Kit.
"Hire a vessel," I suggested.
"Can we do that?" asked Wade.
It seemed likely that we could.
"Has it ever occurred to any of you that we none of us know anything about sailing a vessel?--anything to speak of, I mean?" Kit inquired.
We had all been vaguely aware of such a state of things; but not till now had we been brought face to face with it.
"It would be the worst kind of folly for us to go out of port alone," I couldn't help saying.
"Of course it would," replied Kit.
"I'm well aware of that," said Raed. "We shall have to learn seamanship somehow."
"Besides," remarked Wade, "sailing a vessel wouldn't be very light nor very pleasant work for us, I'm thinking. If we could afford to hire a good skipper, it would be better."
"We shall have to hire one till we learn how to