mortar. Such foundations are solid enough for your
edifices, while this underneath us is just the thing for mine;
and so we may both be suited. What say you again?"

"Precisely what I said before, Mr. Brown," answered Peter
Goldthwaite. "And as for castles in the air, mine may not be as
magnificent as that sort of architecture, but perhaps as
substantial, Mr. Brown, as the very respectable brick block with
dry goods stores, tailors' shops, and banking rooms on the lower
floor, and lawyers' offices in the second story, which you are so
anxious to substitute."

"And the cost, Peter, eh?" said Mr. Brown, as he withdrew, in
something of a pet. "That, I suppose, will be provided for,
off-hand, by drawing a check on Bubble Bank!"

John Brown and Peter Goldthwaite had been jointly known to the
commercial world betweennew, it will be new inside and out, from the cellar
upwards."

"Had not you better let me take the job?" said Mr. Brown,
significantly.

"Not yet!" answered Peter, hastily shutting the window; for, ever
since he had been in search of the treasure, he hated to have
people stare at him.

As he drew back, ashamed of his outward poverty, yet proud of the
secret wealth within his grasp, a haughty smile shone out on
Peter's visage, with precisely the effect of the dim sunbeams in
the squalid chamber. He endeavored to assume such a mien as his
ancestor had probably worn, when he gloried in the building of a
strong house for a home to many generations of his posterity. But
the chamber was very dark to his snow-dazzled eyes, and very
dismal too, in contrast with the living scene