Page:Love and Learn (1924).pdf/177

 his hotel and the cable was delivered to him at the table right before the dessert. Honestly, I was just quivering with excitement and never took my eyes off his face while he read it. For the shortest of moments William's brow contracted and then he flashed us a dazzling smile.

"By Jove!" says William, "I've just made half a million in wheat. We'll drink all the wine in Paris tonight!"

With sparkling eyes Hazel leans over and pats his back, laughing joyously, but I was absolutely dumfounded by his 42-carat nerve! Of course I knew how that cable actually read, since I composed it myself, and I had half a mind to ask him to let me see it and then show him up. On second thought I decided not to for various reasons, one of which was the thousand-to-one shot that William really had put over a fast one in the stock market.

However, the next day while Hazel was out on one of her endless shopping trips, William paid me a call. Really, he was an entirely different person from the boasting, free-spending, smiling young man of the past. His first act was to pull out the cable he got the night before and show it to me without a word. As I expected, it read exactly as I had written it. He then handed me another one, saying he had just received it. This one read: