Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/77

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"Mine? You don't mean to say you suppose I own it!" George Flack exclaimed. The light projected upon her innocence by these words was so strong that the girl blushed, and he went on more tenderly—"It's a pretty sight, the way you and your sister take that sort of thing for granted. Do you think property grows on you, like a moustache? Well, it seems as if it had, on your father. If I owned the Reverberator I shouldn't be stumping round here; I'd give my attention to another branch of the business. That is I would give my attention to all, but I wouldn't go round with the cart. But I'm going to get hold of it, and I want you to help me," the young man went on; "that's just what I wanted to speak to you about. It's a big thing already and I mean to make it bigger: the most universal society-paper the world has seen. That's where the future lies, and the man who sees it first is the man who'll make his pile. It's a field for enlightened enterprise that hasn't yet begun to be worked." He continued, glowing, almost suddenly, with his idea, and one of his eyes half closed itself knowingly, in a way that was habitual with him when he talked consecutively. The effect of this would have been droll to a listener, the note of the prospectus mingling with the accent of passion. But it was not droll to Francie; she only thought it, or supposed it, a proof of the way Mr. Flack saw everything in its largest relations. "There are ten thousand things to do that haven't