On the evening of the third day he returned to the hotel, and announced that he had had the good fortune to purchase a piece of property that he proposed to operate and improve on his own account.
Then he was approached with propositions for forming a company.

He had paid fifty thousand dollars for a farm--paid the money--and before morning he had sold half of it for what he gave for the whole, and formed a company with the nominal capital of half a million of dollars, a moiety of the stock being his own at no cost to him whatever.

The arrangements were all made for the issue of stock and the commencement of operations, and when, three days afterward, he started from Titusville on his way home, he had in his satchel blank certificates of stock, all signed by the officers of the Continental Petroleum Company, to be limited in its issue to the sum of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

He never expected to see the land again.

He did not expect that the enterprise would be of the slightest value to those who should invest in it.