Don't let 'em into the thing more than is necessary," says the Colonel

to Harry; "give 'em a small interest; a lot apiece in the suburbs of the

Landing ought to do a congressman, but I reckon you'll have to mortgage a

part of the city itself to the brokers."

Harry did not find that eagerness to lend money on Stone's Landing in

Wall street which Col. Sellers had expected, (it had seen too many such

maps as he exhibited), although his uncle and some of the brokers looked

with more favor on the appropriation for improving the navigation of

Columbus River, and were not disinclined to form a company for that

purpose. An appropriation was a tangible thing, if you could get hold of

it, and it made little difference what it was appropriated for, so long

as you got hold of it.

Pending these weighty negotiations, Philip has persuaded Harry to take a

little run up to Fallkill, a not difficult task, for that young man would

at any time have turned his back upon all the land in the West at sight

of a new and pretty face, and he had, it must be confessed, a facility in

love making which made it not at all an interference with the more

serious business of life. He could not, to be sure, conceive how Philip

could be interested in a young lady who was studying medicine, but he had

no objection to going, for he did not doubt that there were other girls

in Fallkill who were worth a week's attention.

The young men were received at the house of the Montagues with the

hospitality which never failed there.

232

The Gilded Age