erwards discovered, that the printer, whose spirit
of enterprise was congenial to Uncle Jack's, had shares in three or four
speculations to which he was naturally glad of an opportunity to invite
the attention of the public. In a word, no sooner was my poor father's
back turned than the "Literary Times" was dropped incontinently, and Mr.
Peck and Mr. Tibbets began to concentrate their luminous notions into
that brilliant and comet-like apparition which ultimately blazed forth
under the title of "The Capitalist."

From this change of enterprise the more prudent and responsible of the
original shareholders had altogether withdrawn. A majority, indeed, were
left; but the greater part of those were shareholders of that kind most
amenable to the influences of Uncle Jack, and willing to be shareholders
in anything, since as yet they were possessors of nothing.

Assured of my father's responsibility, the adventurous Peck put plenty
of spirit into the first launch of "The Capitalist." All the walls were
placarded with its announcements; circular advertisements ran from one
end of the kingdom to the other. Agents were engaged, correspondents
levied en masse. The invasion of Xerxes on the Greeks was not more
munificently provided for than that of "The Capitalist" upon the
credulity and avarice of mankind.

But as Providence bestows upon fishes the instrument of fins, whereby
they balance and direct their movements, however rapid and erratic,
through the pathless deeps, so to the cold-blooded creatures of our
own species--that may be classed under the genus Money-Makers--the
same protective power accords the fin-like properties of prudence and
caution, wherewith your true money-getter buoys and guides himself
majestically through the great seas of speculation. In short, the fishes
the net was cast for were all scared from the surface at the first
splash. They came round and smelt at the mesh with their sharp
bottle-noses, and then, plying those invaluable fins, made off as fast
as they could, plunging into the mud, hiding themselves under rocks and
coral banks. Metaphor apart, the capitalists buttoned up their pockets,
and would have nothing to say to their namesake.

Not a word of this change, so abhorrent to all the notions of poor
Augustine Caxton, had been breathed to him by Peck or Tibbets. He ate
and slept and worked at the Great Book, occasionally wondering why he
had not heard of the advent of the "Literary Times," unco