“As the days went by I varied the procedure. Sometimes I regretted the unexpectedly small profit obtained. Once I deliberately announced a loss and sternly gathered reluctant contributions from my associates; but immediately afterwards I did another fine stroke in imaginary wheat and paid a fat dividend to my friends--indeed, that particular affair cost me twenty-five pieces. But it was worth it. I got rid in less than a month of 200 pieces of gold in this fashion. It was a cruel trial, but proved, in the event, most fruitful. For though I would never advise in large investments, yet by this simple method, my reputation for judgment in that which men most value--which is money--was assured.
“I had set 250 pieces aside for this experiment, and my total stock was running low when I steered my ship to port.
“First, out of my remainder, I brought to the city council fifty pieces of gold saying that I had with difficulty screwed them from my young friend, who was still digging away in the outskirts, but that he had faithfully promised the second fifty in two months’ time. Next I created a sort of stupor in the now large circle of my friends by saying publicly and boldly that I was beginning to see something in this plan of draining the marsh. I reminded them that the Engineer had always been my friend, that I had always seen something in him, that in spite of his obvious lack of business sense I could not help admiring his talent in his own line.
“The place was by this time dried and levelled, the embankment was all fairly sloped and paved, the cuttings, heaps, and rubbish had disappeared. Then it was that I took a party of these my important friends out to view the place at evening from the city walls and quietly told them that it was mine.
“There it lay before them: a magnificent plain, reclaimed and ordered, firm land pegged out in rows and with neat placards of new streets, all named.
“You know, my dear nephews, the admiration excited in all men of affairs for one who has forestalled them. I rose in the estimation of my neighbours to a height beyond compare. They already had a most deep reverence for my keen perceptions in commerce which had been proved in so many little tips--insignificant in quantity, but, oh! so universally accurate. Now, indeed, upon learning this great stroke (or, as they called it in the local language, ‘Koo’) they were lost in surprise and respect.