The lowly scribe was curled up with a good book on a luxurious sofa at the publicly traded library when rudely interrupted by an obnoxious fellow pushing a wheelbarrow full of magazines.

“Hey, watcha doin’ with that book?!” the man bawled, shattering the silence. The gentleman was sporting a scowl that could make Don Cherry blush: “What’s that ya smeared all over the cover?!”

Sure enough, it was my pal Bre-Xer, who volunteers at the library, collecting coffee-stained magazines and returning them to their shelves.

“Excuse my sloppiness, my friend. But it’s very good. It’s the cherry from my Starbucks Danish.”

“You better buy that book!!”

“Shhhhh. Can’t you see these nice folks are trying to read . . .”

“They’re going to have to discount that book! You think this is a library or what?”

“It’s the last copy. What do you want me to do? Deny the public the opportunity to read it? Besides, who buys books here anyway?”

“As a shareholder of this company, I demand that you purchase that book immediately. I will alert the librarians — er, sales people. We’ll have you ejected from the library — er, bookstore.”

“Cheer up, my friend. Your stock is going through the roof thanks to that unfriendly bid by Trilogy Retail Enterprises. It’s up to $16. Say, you didn’t buy it at the top . . .”

“Paid 33 bucks. They oughta build me a private box in this store. If people like you would stop using this joint as a library, the stock never would’ve crashed!”

“Say, did you think of buying Starbucks, old pal? Stock’s $45 US. You’d have had a double. Starbucks has this novel idea of business. They actually make you PAY for your beverage. They won’t let you just look at it. Oops . . .”

“Look what you’ve done! Now you’ve spilled coffee all over that book! That’s the last straw!!”

“No, not coffee. Mocha Valencia. Five bucks a shot. My friend, would you do me a favour? Would you see if that librarian over there can clean up my table?”

PRO'S THREE STARS

Deb Abbey, CEO of Vancouver-based Real Assets Investment Management, specializes in social or ethical investing (for a related feature story headlined 'Authors write guide to investing with a conscience', click here.). One of her picks is red-hot Calgary company Canadian Hydro Developers (KHD-TSE), which had a recent price of $2.90 and year range of .76-3.25.

Canadian Hydro, whose stock price has tripled since 1995, focuses on low-impact power generation, run-of-the-river hydro and wind power.

“It has a strong record of consulting with local communities and has an excellent record of diversity, with women well represented at senior levels,” said Abbey. “It will benefit from the trend towards stricter environmental controls and power deregulation. The PE (price-earnings ratio) is 24, which is high for a utility but not considering the consistent growth over the last five years.”

Abbey’s other picks are Nortel Networks (NT-TSE), the leader in the hot optical networking space, and Whole Foods (WFMI-Nasdaq), the largest U.S. chain of natural-foods supermarkets.

Nortel has a recent price of $55.75 with a year range of $43.60-$124.50 and Whole Foods traded recently at $53.50 US (range, $34.37-$63.67).

“Nortel expects to grow earnings and revenue by 30 to 35 per cent in 2001,” said Abbey. “It has also been a world leader in eliminating CFC solvents and cleaning up its operations.”

Whole Foods draws high marks as a “defensive play” for a long-term growth rate of 20 per cent. “The company donates five per cent of after-tax earnings in cash and in kind to local charities and offers employees 20 paid hours per year to do community services.”

TRADING TIP:

A common mistake of mutual-fund investors is a penchant for buying hot funds that often become cold funds. Remember, the buy-low, sell-high rule doesn’t just apply to stocks.

SITE OF THE WEEK:

www.solium.com

Here’s one of the best kept secrets in town — a Calgary-based independent online investment company with a brokerage service offering competitive rates.

It also features a program known as corporate e-soap — an employee stock options administrative platform.

HOT STOCK: Westminster Resources

WML $4.50

Up $1.15 (+34%) on 913,500 shares (week ending Jan. 26)

While Berkley Petroleum has been the talk of the town as Hunt Oil tries to take it over with an unfriendly bid, Westminster, one of Berkley’s partners in the high-profile East Lost Hills gas play, got all the action with a 34-per-cent pop on nearly a million shares. Meanwhile, Berkley’s stock price has stagnated since running up on Hunt’s bid.

COLD STOCK: XS Technologies

XST .26

Down .09 (-26%) on 66,800 shares (week ending Jan. 26)

Good thing XS didn’t hire a Mariachi band to trumpet the latest news. The Calgary-based wireless security services company announced a deal with Mexican security consortium Grupo Control and the stock had all the appeal of a squished burrito. The stock has been in the doldrums for several months, down from a year high of $1.95.