Then to a hotel, a bath, a barber; and, finally, when he had made himself somewhat more in keeping with the well-groomed if heartless city folk that he must now meet, he secluded himself in a corner of a dining room, where he breakfasted behind a morning paper. He first turned to the stock page, fully expecting to see the name "Rockhaven" staring him in the face; but he did not. Then his eye ran down the column of quotations until, among the unlisted securities, it rested on "Rockhaven," thirteen bid and fourteen asked. And strange to say, the thirteen seemed significant; and now he looked elsewhere, feeling sure that he would find the Rockhaven Granite's Company's advertisement, but failed. There were others equally alluring, and to his mind equally deceptive,--oil, mining, development, building, and every other sort of scheme confronting him, each promising safe and sure returns and assuring the reader in fervid language that "now is the time to invest." And so eager were these swindlers to catch the unwary, that some offered stock for five cents a share, and non-assessable at that. Never before had Winn realized that schemers could descend to such pitiful methods as to issue, sign, and keep record of stock at a nickel a share! A trap to catch even newsboys!
Turning in disgust to the column of market gossip, he read the following: "Out of the multiplicity of investment organizations now crowding each other on all sides, a late one, the Rockhaven Granite Company, has forged to the front, its stock having crept up from one to fourteen dollars per share. But little is known of this company, and conservative investors believe the unusually rapid advance in its stock solely due to manipulation."
In this great human hive and on the pages of this leading newspaper the million-dollar scheme of Weston & Hill was only entitled to one line in the list of quotations and a five-line news item.
And Winn thought himself and his troubles to be of small concern.
But his troubles enlarged rapidly when Jack Nickerson came to his room later on.
"Well, old man," said that cheerful sceptic, looking Winn over, "you don't seem to have the odor of fish or any barnacles about you. You have had a hair cut, I see; and now if you will visit a tailor, you will soon be one of us again."