Owen Wister

“ Beverly is holding on to hers.’”
“When I said this, Ethel sat with her mouth tight. Then she opened it and said: ‘I hate that woman.’”
“‘Hate her? Why, you have never so much as laid eyes on her.’”
“‘That is not at all necessary. I consider it indecent for a grey haired woman with grandchildren to be speculating in the stock market every week like a regular bull or bear.’”
“Every point in this outburst of Ethel’s seemed to me so unwarrantable that I was quite dazed. ”

“ Richard made a pause here, and looked at his wife as if he expected her to correct him. But Ethel was plainly satisfied with his statement, and he therefore continued.
“I think it is ideal when a girl is ready to do so much as that for a man. But I should not think it ideal in a man to allow the girl he loved to do it for him. Nor did I then know anything about the lands in Michigan—though this would have made no difference. Ethel had been accustomed to a house several stories high, with hot and cold water in most of them, and somebody to answer the door-bell.” ”

“ Ethel and I read it in the evening.”
“‘I wonder what she’s buying now?’ said Ethel, vindictively.”
“‘Well, I can’t help feeling sorry for her,’ I answered, with as much of a smile as I could produce.”
“‘That is so unnecessary, Richard! She can easily afford to gratify her gambling instinct.’”
“‘There you go, Ethel, inventing millions for her just as you invented grandchildren.’”
“‘Not at all. Unless she constantly had money lying idle, she could not take these continual plunges. She is an old woman with few expenses, and she lives well within her income. ”

“ They are as safe as the United States; and if I advised you to buy them, it would cost me no thought, and my character for safety would run no risk of a blemish. That is the sort of bond that a trustee recommends. But see what income it gives you. Roughly speaking, about twenty-eight thousand dollars.’”
“‘That would not do at all,’ said I, thinking of Ethel and October.”
“‘Certainly not for you,’ returned Mr. Beverly, gaily. If you were a timorous old maid, now, who would really like all her money in her stocking in gold pieces, only she’s ashamed to say so! ”

“ Beverly told me that he should not sell his mother’s unless they went to 110. ‘In that case,’ said he, ‘it might be worth while to capitalise her premium.’”
“I liked the idea of capitalising one’s premium. If you had fifty bonds that cost you par, and sold them at 110, you would then buy at par fifty-five bonds of some other rising kind, and go on doing this until—I named no limit for this process; but my delighted mind saw visions of eighty and a hundred thousand a year—comfort at least, if not affluence in New York—and I explained to Ethel what the phrase capitalising one’s premium meant. ”

“ Yes, Ethel, only to hear the welkin ring would have been enough for you. I know that you are sincere in thinking so. And the ringing welkin is all we should have heard in Michigan. But the more truly a man loves a girl, the less can he bear taking her from an easy to a hard life. ”

“ In passing Tiffany’s window twice each day (for my habit was to walk to and from Nassau Street) I remember that seeing a thousand-dollar clock exposed for sale caused me annoyance. Of course my salary as a clerk brought me into no unfavourable comparison with the clock; and I doubt if I could make you understand my sometimes feeling when I passed Tiffany’s window that I should like to smash the clock.”
“I met Ethel frequently in society, dancing with her, and sitting next her at dinners. ”

“ The rest of us were much older than Richard, we were middle-aged, in fact; and human nature is so constructed, that when it is at the age when making love keeps it busy, it does not care so much to listen to tales of others’ love-making ”

“ At this point in Richard’s narrative, a sigh escaped from Ethel.
“I know,” he immediately said, “that money is always welcome. But it is certainly some consolation to reflect how slight a loss a million dollars is counted to-day in New York. And I did not lose all of it.”
“I met Ethel at the train on her return from Florida, and crossed with her on the ferry from Jersey City to Desbrosses Street. There I was obliged to see her drive away in the carriage with her father.”
“Mr. Field,” said Mrs. Davenport, “what hour did that train arrive at Jersey City?” ”

“ And the narrator paused reflectively.
“Thank you, Richard,” said Ethel from the sofa. “And I admit that I could give you no reason for my request, except that it all seemed so sudden. And—yes—there was one other thing. But that was even more silly.”
“I believe I know what you mean,” replied Richard, “and I shall come to it presently. If any one was silly, it was not you.”
“I did not sell Amalgamated Electric on Wednesday, and on Thursday a doubt about the increased dividend began to be circulated. The stock, nevertheless, after a forenoon of weakness, rallied. ”

“ Beverly assured me, was a normal and even healthy course for a new stock. ‘Had they gone up too soon and too high,’ he explained, ‘I should have suspected some crooked manipulation and advised selling at once. But this indicates a healthy absorption preliminary to a natural rise. I should not dream of letting mother part with hers.’”
“The basis of Standard Egg was not only a monopoly of all the hens in the United States, but a machine called a Separator, for telling the age and state of an egg by means of immersion in water. ”

“ And there are only two in every year, though you pay them a thousand dollars all at once. It does not seem very prompt on their part.’ I told her that this was the rule. ‘But,’ she urged, ‘don’t you think that a man like Mr. Beverly might be able to get them to make an exception if he explained the circumstances? Other people may be satisfied with waiting for little crumbs in this way, but why should we?’ I soon made her understand how it was, however, and I explained many other facts about investments and the stock market to her, as I learned them. ”

“ It had scored a 20-point rise since my purchase of it; and I felt very sorry that I had not taken Mr. Beverly’s advice and bought a thousand shares. It had been on a day when I had felt unaccountably cautious, and I had taken only two hundred and fifty shares of Amalgamated Electric. There are days when one is cautious and days when one is venturesome; and they seem to have nothing to do with results.”
“‘They’re going to increase the dividend,’ said Mr. Beverly, as I smoked his excellent cigar. ‘It’s good for twenty points higher by the end of the week. ”

“ Then I get up and say that I beat him because he made me buy Standard Egg at 63 by telling me that his mother had some, when really the old lady had been dead for fifteen years. When I think of it in this way, I do not feel—‘”
“I know,’ interrupted Ethel, ‘you are afraid of ridicule. All men are.’”
“Had Ethel insisted, I believe that I should have cowhided Mr. Beverly for her sake. But before his return our destinies were brightened. Copper had been found near Ethel’s waste lands in Michigan, and the family business man was able to sell the property for seven hundred thousand dollars. ”

“ And all this a trustee greatly dislikes. It rewards you with five and even six per cent, but that is no stimulus to a trustee.’”
“Something in me had leaped when Mr. Beverly mentioned six per cent. Again I thought of Ethel and October, and what a difference it would be to begin our modest housekeeping on sixty instead of forty thousand dollars a year, outside of what I was earning. Mr. Beverly now rang a bell. ‘You happen to have come,’ said he, ‘on a morning when I can really do something for you out of the common. Bring me (it was a clerk he addressed) one of those Petunia circulars. ”

“ Yet in spite of this, the population had increased 23 and seven-tenths per cent in five years, and now an electric railway was in construction that would double the population in the next five years. This was less than what had happened to other neighbouring resorts under identical conditions; yet with things as they now were, the company was earning two per cent on its stock, which was being put into improvements. The stock was selling at 30, and if a dividend was paid next year, it would go to par. But Mr. Beverly did not counsel buying the stock. ”

“ The Petunias had taken only one-twentieth of a million dollars; and though Mr. Beverly warned me to rush hastily into nothing, and pointed out the good sense of distributing my eggs in a number of baskets, still we both agreed that the sooner all my money was bringing me five or six per cent, the better.”
“I have come to think that it might be well were women taught the elements of investing as they are now taught French and Music. ”

“ Ethel agreed with me entirely; and, after a little, we disclosed our plans to our families, and they met with approval. This was in April, and we thought of October or November for the wedding. It seemed long to wait; but it came near being so much longer, that I grow chilly now to think of it.”
“Of course, I went steadily on with my work at the office in Nassau Street, nor did I neglect my writing entirely. My attention, however, was now turned to the question of investing my fortune. Just round the corner from our office was the firm of Blake and Beverly, Stocks and Bonds. ”

“ Davenport that Richard on returning from his walk had still kept his intentions from Ethel. “She does not manage him in the least,” Mrs. Davenport declared to the other ladies, as Ethel and Richard started for an afternoon drive together. “She will not know anything more when she brings him back.” ”

“ And I’ll tell you what, Ethel. I have been counting it up. She has lost twenty-four thousand dollars in the Standard Egg alone. It takes a good deal of surplus to stand that.’”
“‘Serve her right,’ said Ethel ‘And I would say so to her face.’”
“September brought freshness to the stock market but not to me. Mr. Beverly, like the well-to-do man that he was, remained away in Europe until October should require his presence as a guiding hand in the office. Thus was I left without his buoyant consolation in the face of my investments.”
“Petunias were being adjusted on a four per cent basis ”

“ I imagine they prevail in all countries, just as the feeling about ‘mother’ prevails. Yes, ‘Mother’ is the right title for my story, as you shall see. Is it not strange that if you add ‘in-law’ to the word ‘mother,’ how immediately the sentiment of the term is altered?—as strongly indeed as when you prefix the word ‘step’ to it. ”

“ Beverly now ran his finger up and down various columns. ‘Here again,’ said he, ‘is a typical trustee bond, and nets you a few thousand dollars more at present prices. New York Central and Hudson River 3 1-2’s. Or here are West Shore 4’s at 113 5-8. But you see it scales down to pretty much the same thing. The sort of bond that a trustee will call safe does not bring the owner more than about three and one-half per cent.’”
“‘Why, there are some six per cent bonds!’ I said ”