Finger Posts on the Way of Life

"You think it safe?"

"Nothing can be safer. If the judgment is not paid at the end of six months, you can go to work immediately, with an execution, on the property of the original debtor, or his security, as you may think best, and at once obtain your money."

"Suppose neither of them have any property?"

"I take very good care not to accept bad security. Besides, you will find but few persons out of whom fifty dollars, or less, may not be obtained, under the pressure of an execution."

"I like the idea amazingly," said Wolford, thoughtfully. "Forty per cent. per annum! Capital! I will buy judgments."

"I have two hundred dollars' worth in my desk now, which I have directions to sell. Do you want them? They have six months to run. Twenty per cent. off will be just forty dollars—here they are."

Wolford carefully examined the documents which the magistrate placed in his hands, and, after considering the subject for some time, said that he would buy them. His check for one hundred and sixty dollars was received by the magistrate, and the judgments became his property.

"It's even better than forty per cent. per annum," remarked the magistrate, as he folded up the check he had received.

"How so?"

"You make over fifty-five per cent."

"Indeed!"

"Yes—look at it. You have just paid one hundred and sixty dollars for what will yield you two hundred and six dollars in six months,—for you must remember that you will get legal interest on the claim you have bought. Now this is a fraction over fifty-five per cent. per annum. What do you think of that for an investment?"

"Capital! But have you much of this kind of business?"

"Enough to, keep several thousand dollars constantly employed for you."

"Good!"

With this brief ejaculation, that came from Wolford's heart, he turned away and left the office.

On this operation, the magistrate made six per cent. The regular selling price of judgments was twenty-five per cent., with a commission of one per cent. for effecting the sale.

In a few months, Wolford had all his money invested in judgments. This business he continued for several years, meeting with but few losses. He could then write himself worth twenty-five thousand dollars, and began to find it necessary to seek for some heavier investments than buying judgments, even if they did not pay quite so well.

Loaning money on mortgages of real estate, at about ten per centum, he found a very safe business; with this he united the shaving of undoubted paper, at from one to two per cent. a month. Mr. Tompkins he had frequently shaved so closely as almost to make the blood come. This was previous to the loan before alluded to. Since that had been made, Mr. Tompkins rarely found it necessary to put good paper into Wolford's hands for discount. This the miser considered a dead loss, and he therefore determined that the loan should be taken up, and made in some quarter not likely to affect the shaving operations.

The declaration of Mr. Tompkins, that he could easily get some one else to take the mortgage, was not too well relished by Wolford, If he were sure this could be done, he would be content to accept an increase of interest and continue the loan, for the security was of the very safest kind, and ample.

"I must think about this," said he to himself, as he walked homeward, after parting with Tompkins. "I rarely make false moves, and should not like to do so in this case."

CHAPTER II

WHEN Mr. and Mrs. Tompkins met, at dinnertime, neither of them appeared in the most happy frame of mind. The lady looked especially disagreeable. The meal passed in silence, and was eaten with little appetite.

As soon as her husband had retired from the house, which he did very soon after he had left the table, Mrs. Tompkins's manner changed.

"Humph!" said she, tossing her head, "he needn't begin the sulky game with me. Two can play at that, as he ought to know very well. I've set my heart on having a handsomer establishment than the purse-proud Mrs. Gileston, and, what is more, I will be gratified. Mr. Tompkins is worth two dollars to her husband's one, and yet she sweeps about the street with the air of a duchess, and never so much as looks me in the face, though I have been twice introduced to her. But, I'll be even with my lady! I've set my heart on this, and will move heaven and earth to accomplish it."

This half-spoken soliloquy will afford the reader some clue to the character of Mrs. Tompkins. Her husband, to whom she had been married about ten years, had gradually risen from the position of a clerk to that of a merchant, in a small way, when the death of a distant relative put him in possession of about, thirty thousand dollars. Up to that time, his wife, who was a poor girl when he married her, had been content to live in a style suited to their means. But the moment a fortune so large in her eyes, fell to their share, her ideas expanded, and she suddenly became aware of the fact that she was a woman of no mean importance.

To Mr. Tompkins, this money came just in time to save him from failure. He had started, as too many do, without capital, and had unwisely attempted to do more business than means so limited would bear. He, consequently, knew the value of money far better than his wife, and was disposed to invest what he did not require in his business, in a safe way. She, on the contrary, proposed that they should, at once, adopt a style of living in consonance with their bettered fortunes.

"We live very comfortably, as we now are," he said, in answer to a repetition of her plea for a handsome house, on the evening following the day of his interview with Wolford. "We live as well as our means have, until within a few years, enabled us to live."

Mrs. Tompkins rejoined—

"With improved fortunes, we should adopt a different style."

"I don't think we should be in any particular hurry about it," said the husband. "Let the change, if any be made, come gradually."

"All eyes are upon us," was Mrs. Tompkins's answer to this. "And everybody expects us to take a different and higher place in society."

"It is my opinion," said the husband, "that we are free to live in any style that may suit us."

"It is all very well to say that, Mr. Tompkins, but it will not do. We must, while in the world, do as the world does. People in our circumstances do not live in a rented house;—we should have a dwelling of our own, and that a handsome one—handsomer than Gileston's house, about which there, is so much talk."

"Gileston's house!" said Mr. Tompkins, in surprise. "Why that house didn't cost a cent less than twenty-five thousand dollars."

"Well, suppose it did not. What then?"

"Do you imagine that we can build a house at an expense of twenty-five thousand dollars?"

"Why not, Mr. Tompkins?"

"Where is the money to come from?"

"There it is again! But I can tell you."

"I wish to my heart you would, for it's more than I can."

"Take it out of bank, where it lies rusting."

"Humph!"

"What's the matter?"

"How much do you suppose I have in bank tonight?"

"Dear knows! Forty or fifty thousand dollars, I suppose."

"Just seventy-nine dollars and ten cents! And what is more, I have two thousand dollars to pay to-morrow, five hundred on the day after, and ten or twelve thousand more to make up within the next two weeks. If You will tell me where all this money is to come from, I will build you a dozen houses: as it is, you must build your own castles—in the air."

A flood of tears answered this bitterly spoken reply. Her tears, the lady had found, on more occasions than one, to have a powerful effect upon her husband. It must be said for her, that she did not believe a word of what Mr. Tompkins had alleged in regard to the balance of his bank account. For a man who had been in a good business for a number of years, and had received a legacy of thirty thousand dollars, to be so near out of cash, was to her mind preposterous. She knew he had invested nearly twenty thousand dollars in property, but what of that? Her tears disturbed Mr. Tompkins, as they always did.

"What I tell you is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," said he, in a calm, but serious voice, after, the sobs of his wife had begun to die away. "And now, what would you have me do?"

"You can do just as you please, Mr. Tompkins. It is nothing to me. You know your own business best." This was said with an offended air, in which was something of indifference.