“This is a noble property.  In ten years it has paid its owner $500,000,—­$50,000 a year.  It is sure to go on in this way under good management.  I offer, in the name of the owner, to bond this property to you for $300,000 for five years at six per cent.  Of course this is an unusual opportunity.  The owner has grown rich out of it, and he is now willing to retire and give others a chance.  His offer to you is to sell the mine for half its value, and, at the same time, to give you five years in which to pay for it.  I will add something to this proposition, for I feel certain that he will agree to it.  It is this:  Mr. Gordon will build and equip a small brewery on this property, in which good, wholesome beer can be made for you at one cent a glass.  You are to pay for the brewery in the same way that you pay for the other property; it will cost $25,000.  This will make $325,000 which you are to pay during the next five years.  How?  Let me tell you.

“The property will give you a net income of $40,000 or $50,000, and you will save $50,000 more when you give up whiskey and get your beer for less than one-fourth of what it now costs you.  The general store at which you have always traded will be run in your interests, and all that you buy will be cheaper.  The market will be a cooperative one, which will furnish you meat, fattened on your own land, at the lowest price.  Your fruit and vegetables will come from these broad acres, which will be yours and will cost you but little.  You will earn more money because you will be sober and industrious, and your money will purchase more because you will deal without a middleman.  You will be better clothed, better fed, and better men.  Your wives will take new interest in life, and there will be carpets on your floors, curtains at your windows, vegetables behind your cottages, and flowers in front of them.

“All these things you will have with the money you are now earning, and at the same time you will be changing from the laborer to the capitalist.  The mine gives you a profit of $40,000, and you save one-fourth of your wages, which makes $50,000 more,—­$90,000 in all.  What are you to do with this?  Less than $20,000 will cover the interest.  You will have $70,000 to pay on the principal.  This will reduce the interest for the next year more than $3000.  Each year you can do as well, and by the time the five years have passed you will own the mine, the land, the brewery, the store, the market, and this blessed blacksmith shop about which you have had so much fuss, and also a bank with a paid-up capital of $50,000.  You are capitalists, every one of you, at the end of five years, if you wish to be, and if you are willing to give up the single item,—­whiskey.

“Do you like the plan?  Do you like the prospect?  Turn it over and see what objections you can find.  If you are willing to go into it, come over to Four Oaks some day and we will go more into details.  McGinnis gave you one side of the picture:  I have given you the other.  You are at liberty to follow whichever you please.”