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than anything else a traveller's mind could have suggested.

"Land is immensely valuable here," said Tamms. "That's Deacon Thompson's place; he paid thirty thousand for it two years ago, and he says he's been offered fifty since." Charlie looked at the red-and-green structure, with its little paddock of lawn, and felt that it would not satisfy him; and yet he possessed not even thirty thousand dollars. "Pretty place," said Tamms.

Charlie assented. "Now what does a man like that want money for?" he argued to himself. But Tamms, having paid this tribute to the aesthetic side of life, proceeded to open his telegrams, and cast a hasty eye on the stock reports in Charlie's paper; then they both conversed of stocks and bonds. And after driving some three miles above the water (which made continual murmur at their feet) they drove back the way they came. At Elberon, Tamms pointed out the cottage where Garfield died.

"I see the Starbuck Oil has declared its usual dividend," said Charlie, watching his chief closely. "The boys say it wasn't earned."

"I don't suppose the directors would have paid it if they hadn't earned it," said Tamms, sharply. Now Tamms, since they had purchased the control, was one of the directors.

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"I suppose not," said Charlie. "I was merely saying what the boys say.' "Humph!" was all the reply his host vouchsafed to this; and by this time they were driving into the carefully pebbled avenue of "The Mistletoe," which was Mr. Tamms's abode. It was a small hotel, partly surrounded by glass galleries, in one of which three young men were sitting at a lunch-table, over claret and seltzer and liqueurs, though it was after six o'clock. The house was most ornately furnished; a little yellow-haired girl of twelve, dressed in pale lilac silk, with a short skirt, and mauve silk stockings on her long little legs, was standing at the counter talking to the clerk. All the servants were in livery, and Charlie made a mental note that the place was unexpectedly "swell."

You want to go up to your room before dinner, I suppose," said Tamms, as if making a concession to Charlie's

juvenile weaknesses. Charlie found his room a small apartment, with a rather expensive carpet and a most overpowering wall-paper; and it had the unusual luxury of a dressing-room attached. The sea was quite out of sight; but his room looked out upon the dusty street, and a printed placard on the wall informed him that its cost was twelve dollars a day. There was neither view, nor hills, nor country, nor even trees (save a line of petted young oaks that gave the place its name), in sight; but in every direction the eye was met by scores upon scores of wooden houses; and on the clipped grass that struggled with the red-clay plain the sun's rays still beat mercilessly.

They dined sumptuously; and had champagne, which was, with Tamms, the only alternative for water. A score or so of richly dressed ladies, with their husbands, were at the tables, including the little girl in lilac silk, who drank champagne also. The mother of the little girl-a magnificent woman, with black hair, carefully dressed, like a salad-sat opposite them; and her husband leaned his elbow on the table and his beard upon the palm of his hand, and talked to Tamms, between the courses. Charlie was introduced as a young man in my office," and was treated by the lady with undissembled scorn ; indeed, she condescended even to Tamms. And Charlie felt all the delight of some explorer landed among savages, who prefer colored beads to diamonds. "Positively," thought Charlie," she does not even know that I am Charlie Townley!” Mrs. Haberman certainly did not, and would have refused him her daughter's hand in marriage, that evening, had he asked for it. And again it occurred to Charlie that wealth was the one universal good, after all.

Tamms certainly thought so; and when they got out on the piazza, began to talk about it. "Mr. Townley," said he, "I think I have observed that while you are not over attentive to the business, you can keep a secret."

"You are very kind, sir," said Charlie.

"The fact is, the Starbuck Oil Company has proved a very bad investment indeed for the Allegheny Central Railroad Company."

"Dear me!" said Charlie, sympathetically, but as if inviting further confidence. Tamms looked at him for a moment, and then went on:

"The oil works showed the usual profit, but upon closing the accounts of the first year of the new terminal enterprise, we find that the property has failed to pay even its running expenses. In fact the company will probably default on the next coupon of the Terminal bonds.-How many of them have we left?"

"You must be thinking of some mere newspaper rumor," added Tamms.

"Very possibly, sir," Charlie replied, meekly; and just then an elaborately dressed woman of rather flamboyant appearance passed through the glass-covered piazza in which they were sitting, and Mr. Tamms scrambled hastily upon his feet and bowed. Charlie followed suit, though surprised at this unusual demonstration of his impassive principal; and as he looked at him, he fancied that he saw the faintest trace of some

Charlie was silent a moment, as if to embarrassment. count.

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Only a little over a hundred thousand," said Charlie, "not counting those we are carrying for our customers."

"You will of course have to look after their margins," said Tamms, absentmindedly. "Sell at once if they do not respond.'

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("The old Shylock!") thought Charlie. Certainly, sir," he said. "Shall I sell the hundred thousand we have left of our own?"

Tamms looked at our young friend sternly. "And profit by our official knowledge of the coming default? Certainly not, sir. We will bear our loss with the rest." And Tamms drew himself up and placed his right hand in the breast of his black frock-coat, much as if he were addressing posterity-or a newspaper reporter, as Charlie reflected. This sudden high moral attitude was admirable, if inexplicable.

"But," said Charlie, "the bonds being guaranteed by the Allegheny Central Railroad

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'Guaranteed by the Allegheny Central?" interrupted Tamms, in astonishment, his whity-blue eyes opened to their fullest extent.

"That was certainly my impression, sir," faltered Charlie. For he remembered that he himself had composed a newspaper item to that effect.

"Here is the original circular under which the bonds were issued," said Tamms, with dignity; and Charlie cast his eye over it timorously. There was certainly nothing in it about a guaranty, though Charlie had a distinct impression that when the bonds were "listed" on the Stock Exchange this had been the general understanding.

"She is not a guest of the hotel," said Tamms. "Her name is Beaumont, I believe; she owns an adjoining cottage."

"Dear me !" said Charlie. "That is very bad for people who own the stock." "Own what stock?" said Tamms. "The Starbuck Oil," said Charlie, in a tone as if adding "of course."

"It is

"Oh, ah, yes," said Tamms. most unfortunate. Still, they should have exchanged it for Allegheny Central when we gave them the chance.'

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Charlie suddenly remembered that all the stock had not been exchanged.

"I suppose our people hold a majority, of course," said Charlie. And again he looked at Tamms.

But to this Mr. Tamms vouchsafed no answer; he apparently did not hear it, for he was already rising and putting on his gloves. Shall we take a stroll?"

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"I should like nothing better," said Charlie, heartily; and Tamms having sent for two cigars (for which, as Charlie noted, he paid fifty cents apiece), they took their way across the close-cropped lawn.

"That, I am told," said Mr. Tamms, pointing to a gayly lighted pagoda opposite, "which they call the Maryland Club, is in reality nothing better than a gambling house."

"Dear me!" said Charlie.

"It is an outrage upon our civilization that such social plague-spots are openly tolerated; a sentiment from which Charlie could not withhold his assent, though he was glad the darkness prevented Mr. Tamms from seeing the smile which accompanied it. Nothing more was said between them for some time; Mr. Tamms was evidently wrapped in thoughts of business, and Charlie, for

his part, was considering where and how, in what previous state of her existence, he had known Mrs. Beaumont before.

So musing, they came to the plankwalk above the sea; it was almost deserted of promenaders, and below it, from the darkness of the night, came in the long ocean rollers, shining whitely on the shallow beach, as if gifted with some radiance of their own. They leaned some time over a railing by a bathpavilion, and watched the breakers in silence; some women were in the sea-it was the servants from the hotel, bathing in the only hour that was allowed to them. And from the great hotel behind them came some vulgar music from a band.

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They are having a ball at the BeauMonde to-night, I believe," said Tamms, at last. "Would you like to look in?" Charlie professed his willingness; and they walked across the dusty street to the huge caravanserai, its hundred windows flaming with light. They found the veranda crowded with perhaps a thousand people, sitting in groups, the ladies in white or low-necked dresses, their diamond ear-rings flashing thick as fireflies above a summer swamp. Among them were numerous Jews and Jewesses; the latter, at least, a splendid, fullblooded, earth-compelling race, though their males more wizened. In the great ball-room some score or more of children were dancing to a waltz, but no grown people as yet. These were as elegantly attired as their parents, only that they did not wear low-necked gowns, but in lieu of this had short skirts and gay silk stockings reaching well above the knee. Among them was the twelve-year-old miss in lilac from the Mistletoe; and many of these had already diamond solitaires and more than the airs and graces of a woman of the world. Their cheeks were flushed, and their long hair tossing about them; some few were romping frankly, but most were too dignified for this; and as their silk sashes fluttered and their silk stockings twinkled in the dance, they were undeniably a pretty sight, and might have been a pleasant one, to their mothers. But I think a country hay-mow had been better for them.

But these same mothers were sitting on the piazza outside, not yet too old to flirt, and taking more pleasure in showing off

their dresses than perhaps their children did, as yet. And those who were too ill-favored by Heaven for this could at least talk about spending money, and about each other. Tamms soon found a congenial group, a group consisting of Mrs. Beaumont and himself; and Charlie was left to his own devices. He drifted into the bar-room and took a drink, by way of killing time; and hereabout he found the husbands mostly congregated. And, as their wives had been talking of spending money, they were talking about making it; and Charlie listened some time and then went home alone.

When he got to the Mistletoe, he called for a telegraph blank and wrote a telegram to Mrs. Levison Gower. It ran as follows:

"I think you had better sell your Starbuck Oil. Who is attending to your affairs in town? C. T."

Surely, with all his faults, our friend thus proved himself a knight faithful and loyal, à la mode. But having written it, Charlie remembered that he did not know where to send it; for Mrs. Gower was off in a chariot which bore no freight of worldly care. Was she not mistress of Aladdin's lamp? She had but to rub a finger, and all things were heaped at her feet. Aye; but the slaves of the lamp, who were they? Suppose they were not faithful; suppose they proved unruly and rose up in revolt? Did not even an Aladdin's slave turn out to be one of the Genii?

Townley liked Mrs. Gower, and did not wish her to be humbled. Socially, she helped him still. Should he say Lenox? He thought a moment; and the upshot of his deliberations was a resolve to do nothing for a day at least. Whereupon he went to bed, and, let us hope, to pleasant dreams.

For he could not quite account for Tamms's virtuous refusal to sell their own bonds before the coming default.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE SLAVES OF THE LAMP.

"You had better not go back to-day," said Mr. Tamms to Charlie when he came down in the morning. "They can

get along without you at the office; besides, I should like you to drive with me to Ocean Grove." Charlie was always ready enough to get along without the office, even if the converse of that proposition had not been unusual enough upon the lips of Mr. Tamms to excite his curiosity. So the long-tailed fast horses were brought out in the trottingbuggy, and, well provided with cigars and morning papers, the two set forth upon their journey. It was a piping hot day; the glaring surface of the sea lay still beside them, and the straight, unshaded, red-clay road seemed to be rapidly baking into brick. Mrs. Haberman came to see them off, robed still in a sort of gorgeous bedchamber arrangement of pale silk and laces, the inevitable large diamonds still in her ears. For some miles their way was the same they had taken the day before, along the rows of shadeless villas, each "cottage" more ornate and ramifying than the last; then they came to a long rise of the sweltering fields, past a thin grove of pines, a few cheaper boarding-houses, and a swamp with an artificial pond. Beyond this the hotels began again; and they crossed a long lagoon that looked like some breeding-place for fevers and lay between two great wooden cities; these were Asbury Park and Ocean Grove; and in front of them was still the sea.

Many of the cottages were here the merest little wooden boxes, some of them put together still more informally, of canvas and of poles, so that one looked through the whole domestic range, from the front part, which was a parlor, through the open family bedroom to the kitchen behind. These were the abodes of those who (not like the dwellers at Long Branch) came here in search of religious experiences; but Charlie saw, save a Bible text or two in chromo, no visible evidence of the higher life. Paterfamilias was usually lolling, unbuttoned as to waistcoat, in the front part of the establishment; materfamilias, in an indescribable white gown that seemed but a shapeless covering for divers toilet sins, was busied with housewifely duties; and the filia pulchrior was commonly set forth in a hammock upon the little piazza, lost in

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some novel of "The Duchess "Bertha Clay," but not too lost in those entrancing pages to cast some very collected glances at Charlie and his patron's handsome equipage.

There were fewer "saloons" than at Long Branch; but even more confectioners' shops and summer circulating libraries; and plenty of hotels. Before the largest of these, Mr. Tamms drew up his steaming horses, and asked of the sable yet proud young porter if Mr. Remington were in. "Deacon Remington is down at the beach, sah," was the reply; and Mr. Tamms gave orders for his horses to be rubbed and cared for, while they sought the Deacon (who seemed a person of much prominence at Ocean Grove) on foot.

Plank-walks led in all directions through the streets, which otherwise would have been heavy walking, in the heaped-up sand; for there was no turf nor other vegetation, except where an artificial platebande of red leaves and greenhouse plants was fostered at the street corners. They took the walk which led seaward, passing one or two huge wooden tabernacles where sermons, meetings, or other Methodist functions were performed every day, as frequent wooden placards informed them. But they were empty now; and Charlie could see the theatre of rows of rising seats, much like the band-pavilion at a beach less sacred than was this. They crossed the end of the fresh-water lagoon, passed a flotilla of pleasure boats, and ascended to the sandy shore; here, from the crest of the beach, the walk led upward still, supported on piles, to the great ocean pier, a sort of sublimated piazza, double or triple decked, roofed, and extending far along the beach before them, with a pier projecting far out over the sea. population of the place assembled, knitting, reading, or doing nothing to the music of a brass band which, stationed at the outer end of the pavilion, was performing revival hymns. seemed to Charlie that there must be some thousands of people on this pier alone; and he saw that there was another deck below, and still below that the beach was strewn, like drift-wood, with humanity. The task of finding

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Deacon Remington seemed hopeless, and Charlie made bold to ask why they

should look further.

"The Deacon is the leader of our church," said Tamms, "and a very shrewd man. He is one of the largest stockholders in Starbuck Oil."

Charlie said nothing more; and in a moment a gaunt man rose up from a little table they were passing by and addressed Tamms eagerly. His upper lip was shaven, but otherwise his beard was unkempt; his sallow face had a worn and weary look which even the perfunctory smile that continually gleamed across it, like sheet-lightning, did not permanently relieve.

the madam?" said Tamms.

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"How's

My wife is here," said the Deacon; and he jerked his head in the direction of a fat and comely personage, clothed in continual gray, who was placidly knitting at the table beside them. It seemed a pity to rout her up to bow; but it had to be done, for Charlie was introduced, and she rose portentously:

"Delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr. Townley," said she, when Tamms had mentioned him. "Father, where are the girls?"

"You'll find my da'ters down on the beach, I guess," said the Deacon, thus prompted.

"I came to tell you a little about that Starbuck stock, you know," began Tamms; but the Deacon sprang up hastily again, as if this were no place for tidings of moment. "Let's walk along the beach, and find my da'ters," said he, "and then you can both come up to the house to dinner," and he led the way back to the pier-head, and then down the stairs to the lower story, where the bathing-houses were. Here the floor was less occupied; possibly because the continual passing and repassing of persons in bathing-dresses and bare feet made it uncomfortably damp and sandy. Charlie looked over the rail, and saw the beach beneath, where it was shaded by the pavilion, crowded with men and women in every conceivable variety of attitude. Many couples had scooped out hollows for themselves, where they wallowed with the sands heaped about them; others lay back to back, a huge umbrella stuck

in the sand behind them, the girl usually reading aloud, the young man smoking. Many still wore their bathing-dresses, though the folds of cloth were now quite dry and it was evident that they had worn them through the morning. One pretty girl was lying with her bare feet and ankles drying in the sun and her long hair spread out upon the sand; a young man sat beside her, in a striped sleeveless jersey and tights, smoking a cigarette. Charlie could not but think of cows upon a summer's day, standing knee-deep in the pool, as he saw these varied groups in age and dress and sex all grovelling in the deli

cious coolness of the wet sea-sand.

"We have got to default upon the Terminal bonds, you know," were the first words Charlie heard spoken.

"No!" said Mr. Remington, openmouthed. And he stood staring at Tamms, his long arms hanging limply to his broadcloth coat-tails.

"Yes," said Tamms; "I came down to tell you. The thing isn't known yet, you know."

Charlie fancied that a shade of color returned to the Deacon's cheeks at this announcement. "Dear me!" said he. "But I thought

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"Come back to the hotel, Remington; we can't talk here," said Tamms, who had some difficulty in picking his way among the outstretched arms and limbs and heads of hair, many of whose owners had closed their eyes, and the way being further complicated by the gambols of playing children, and the wetness of others, in wading to their waists.

"Certainly," said the Deacon, half turning about. "And of course you'll have dinner with us. Only I wanted

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young man to meet my girls. Why, here comes Sadie now." And indeed a brown-haired damsel of some twenty summers, just emerged from the sea, was running swiftly toward them. Sadie, this is Mr. Tamms, and Mr.Mr. Townley," and the trio bowed at a respectful distance, for Miss Remington was still extremely wet. "Sadie'll show you the shortest way back," said Mr. Remington, "and I'll go back and get the mother." Sadie gave a toss to her mane of hair, which scorned any oiled cap, as if to indicate her readiness; and

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