A. M. Chisholm

“ If I ask you for advice as a friend you'll give it to me, won't you? Or maybe you could give me the straight tip if you found a good thing?'
"Well, you know," said Collingwood, evasively, "good things don't last, and have to be snapped up. Every time there's a cinch play you can figure on half a dozen men fighting for the first chance to get their dollars down on it. You have to have real money—cash—to put on the board, and as a rule there's no time to look twice at a proposition."
"I unnerstan' all that," said Mortimer, nodding his head with tipsy gravity. ”

“ Heavens, man, I've bathed old Swedes in champagne and they thought it was cider—all in the way of business. And I've paid for a few days' bender for half a dozen wild and woolly gentlemen, and the bill ran into the thousands. ”

“ Mortimer confessed that he had not.
"I'll have to qualify it a little," said Collingwood. "Of course there are a number of fields of investment of which I have no knowledge—no one man can cover everything. My specialties are rather restricted, but mining happens to be one of them. People back East have gone crazy over Galena, and I am here to look at the ground for some of them."
"There ought to be good chances for investment," said Mortimer tentatively.
"Plenty of chances to sink money," returned Collingwood skeptically. "The good things can't be bought with much profit." ”