Page:Dick Hamilton's Fortune.djvu/255

Rh than the milk company in which he was interested had failed.

"Panics are bad things," murmured Dick, which sentiment was echoed by many another person that day.

Still Dick was not too much cast down. He knew he was a very wealthy young man, and he had no fear that his father's millions would be disturbed in the general hard times that would be sure to follow. But it hurt his pride that, with all his wealth, he could not do as much as little Tim Muldoon had done—start with nothing and make money.

"I'm almost ready to sell papers," mused Dick, with a smile.

However, he decided to do nothing rash. He still had more than a month until his birthday—the time limit for making the paying investment—and he felt that in that period something would occur that would enable him to fulfil the conditions of his mother's will.

"At any rate, I've got to go to school to-day," he said to himself, as he finished what, for him, was rather a slim breakfast. "I guess I'll come out right in the end. In fact, I've got to if I want to escape Uncle Ezra's clutches."

As Dick was coming home from his classes that afternoon, turning over in his mind various plans for making a good investment—from growing mushrooms or raising squabs to starting a brass band or becoming proprietor of a small