“Well!” said Mr. Winkle. “This is indeed a pleasure I did not expect. What a very nice place you have here!”

“Pretty well, pretty well,” replied Bob Sawyer. “I passed , soon after that precious party, and my friends came down with the needful for this business; so I put on a black suit of clothes, and a pair of spectacles, and came here to look as solemn as I could.”

“And a very snug little business you have, no doubt?” said Mr. Winkle knowingly.

“Very,” replied Bob Sawyer. “So snug, that at the end of a few years you might put all the profits in a wineglass, and cover ’em over with a gooseberry leaf.”

“You cannot surely mean that?” said Mr. Winkle. “The stock itself⁠—”