"Well, I just guess!" laughed the other. "If he's quick about it."

"Do you suppose you could find out how to get some of that stock?" was
the next question.

"Sure," said Manning--"that's what we're in business for."

And then, as luck would have it, a city man bought the old Wyckman
farm, and the trustees of the estate came to visit Ephraim in solemn
state and paid down three crisp one-thousand-dollar bills and carried
off the canceled mortgage. And the old man sat a-tremble holding in
his hands the savings of his whole lifetime, and facing the eager
onslaught of his two eldest sons.

"But, Adam!" he protested. "It's gambling!"

"It's nothing of the kind," cried the other. "It's no more gambling
than if I was to buy a horse because I knowed that horses would be
scarce next spring. It's just business."

"But those factories make beer bottles and whisky bottles!" exclaimed
the old man. "Does it seem right to you to get our money that way?"

"They make all kinds of bottles," said Adam; "how can they help what
they're used for?"

"And besides," put in Dan, with a master-stroke of diplomacy, "it will
raise the prices on 'em, and make 'em harder to git."