The Sunday morning news. [volume] (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1886-1891, 1891-05-10


PERHAPS THEY WERE NOT KISSING.
An unhappy man during the ensuing
week was Farmer Heinrich Kropff.
/ When not in anxious private consulta-
ton with the Goldbug, who seemed to
have become fixture on the place, he
was sunk in melancholy or in such nerv-
Gus plight that trivial thing would
suffice to throw him into passion.
Frau Kropf did not scruple to free her
mind of the vehement conviction that
sssome guilty secret" was worrying him,
and had pleasing suggestive stories to
tell of man in Schnorenberg, of whom
she once heard, who went on in that way
for just one month, and then hanged
himself.
One day those shrewd betrayers,
Messrs. Cute and Sharp, reappeared at
the farm. Sight Of them transformed
Herr Kropfss grief to indignation.
s.Robbersl Schwindlerst' he cried. sI
got boor opinion of you. Vat tuyfel
shall have sent your skinny faces my
way to schnell out more about my farm
as know mineselluf? Vas not fool
when / give you permission that you
shall schnoop about my blaze? HehT
They laughingly replied that it was
too late to talk about that now; business
was business, and there was no reason
why they should not utilize good thing
that he did not even know he had He
swore that he would not sell the farm to
| them, but they did not appear either sur
prised or disturbed, merely replying that
'sthe courts would settle that" Herr
Kropff shuddered. Like most honest
men he had horror Of courts. Finally,
after long consultation between the
partners, Mr.. Sharp said to him:
"We have great regard for You, Mr..
Kropf, and do not want to be hoggish
in this matter, so we can probably agree
upon compromise that will be mutually
satisfactory. We only want the north
ern half of your farm, and will pay you
for that the came amount that we had
agreed to giy0 you for the entire place.
Furthermore, we viii let you have in
payment stock in the company we are
organizing, and win put you in on the
ground floor. In other words, you shall
have two thousand shares at fifty per
cent. of their par value, the price at
which win be put upon the market the
first twenty-five thousand shares"
How many shares altogether viii
there be9'
'sOne hundred thousand. The divi-
dends on your two thousand shares will
bring you in from eight hundred to one
thousand dollars month at least, and
if you choose to sell out within six
months you will get probably twenty or
twenty-five dollars per share"
To that arrangement, with little hest
tation, the farmer agreed. Aside from
the brilliant prospects opened up by
Mr.. Sharp's scheme, he had an idea
that he thought was his own, though IN
reality it was ray from the Goldbug's
4 genius, and its magnifcence easily rec
! onciled him to the compromise pro-
posed.
Frankly, Mr.. Kropf," said Mr.. Sharp
SIS he re-entered his buggy with Mr..
Cute to drive away, 81 am very glad
that an amicable understanding has
been reached between US. The thing is
80 big that we can afford to be liberal,
and hardly any price would be too much
to pay for the good will of so estimable
and pleasant neighbor as yourself. In
four or FIVE days win bring You up
your stock and we viii make the trans
fer"
Mr. Chipland was present during that
interview, but took no part in it and no
body seemed to notice him.
When the New Workers. were gone
Farmer Kropf went out to the barn
alone, and using a piece of keil on the
smooth face of toolroom door, plunged
into sea of calculations. He would
not be oversanguine, he said to himself,
and so would take as basis the lowest,
4 and not the highest, figures of income
that Mr.. Sharp had named--eight hun
dred dollars per month or nine thousand
six hundred dollars per annum. That
he could easily loan on good security at
six per cent. Allowing one year for ac-
cumulation of that sum, as starter, in
! ten years more dividends and interest on
his loans would have reached the sum OF
$134 1855. But his magnificent idea would
!. dwarf that. He, without any company
to share the profits, would work the
southern half of his farm as a gold mine,
and Of course it would pay him rev
enue equal to all that the company would
take from the northern half, or, in other
words, fifty times as much as he would
get from his two thousand shares. In
eleven years, then, he would have from
that source SO, $50. The contempla-
tion Of those figures almost took his
breath away. Again and again be went
over them, each time exclaiming '.Mg
gracionsw when he reached the grand
total Of the two sumo So s47,5i5.
Il win be one Of the richest men in the
vorldw he exclaimed
Tearing himself away from the fas