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 because they were too conservative to see the opportunity! Business men see it though. Why not your You are banking to make money. Here's something that will make money faster. Here's a chance to get in on the ground floor of a new enterprise with a block of stock as large as you want it."

Gilman's manner was peculiar. His hand had stolen up till it masked the expression of his mouth, and over the screen of the hand the eyes peered out, questioning, deliberating, hungering.

George had finished. He had said his say. Good tactics required that the banker should from this on nibble his own way into the enterprise if he would.

It was now, therefore, that real chaffer began. Stephen Gilman hemmed and hawed; he examined and cross-examined; he analyzed and reanalyzed the constituent elements in and the prospects of the Morris-Judson Automobile Company. To George the moment when the shrewd old banker definitely made up his mind was as clear as if the jaws of a steel trap had clicked. But even then it was some minutes before Mr. Gilman spoke.

"I will take ten thousand shares of your stock, George!" he said decisively, and quite with the air of a man entirely well and physically alert, he lifted his softshod feet, swung them to the floor, and stood erect, a tall, spare drape of gray,