He had actually paid a thousand pounds down in hard cash, a commercial transaction which, as performed by himself, he regarded as stupendous.  It was almost incredible to himself that he should have paid any one a thousand pounds, but he had done it with much difficulty,—­having carried Dolly junior with him all the way into the city,—­in the belief that he would thus put himself in the way of making a continual and unfailing income.  He understood that as a director he would be always entitled to buy shares at par, and, as a matter of course, always able to sell them at the market price.  This he understood to range from ten to fifteen and twenty per cent, profit.  He would have nothing to do but to buy and sell daily.  He was told that...