still lower, what I am now to give up to them at
90."--"You know that beforehand?"--"With mathematical certainty. The
public expects an El Dorado in the Southwestern Railway, as it does in
every new enterprise. The undertaking is a good one, it is true, or I
should not have ventured upon it. But one must be able to wait until
the fruit is ripe. The small holders cannot do that; they sow today,
and tomorrow they wish to reap. At the first payment their heart and
their purse are all right. At the second or third, both are gone. Upon
the least rise they will throw the paper, for which they were ready to
break each other's necks, upon the market, and so depreciate their
property. But if some fortuitous circumstance should cause a pressure
upon the money market, then they drop all that they have, in a perfect
panic, for any price. I shall watch this moment, and buy. In a year or
so, when the road is finished and its communications complete, the
shares that were subscribed for at 90, and which I shall have bought
at 60 to 70, will touch 100, or higher."

"That is to say," said Roland, thoughtfully, "you will gain at the
expense of those people whose confidence you have aroused, then
satisfied with objects of artificial value, and finally drained for
yourself." "Business is business," replied the familiar harsh voice.
"Unless I become a counterfeiter or a forger I can do nothing more
than to convert other persons' money into my own; of course, in an
honest way."--"And you do this, without fearing lest one day some one
mightier and luckier than you should do the same to you?"--"I must be
prepared for that; I am prepared."--"Also for the storm,--not one of
your own creating, but one sent by the wrath of God, that shall
scatter all this paper splendor of our times, and reduce this
appalling social inequality of ours to a universal zero?" "Let us
quietly abide this Last Day," laughed the banker, taking the artist
by the arm.

THE WATCHMAN

The last faint twinkle now goes out
Up in the poet's attic;
And the roisterers, in merry rout,
Speed home with steps erratic.

Soft from the house-roofs showers the snow,
The vane creaks on the steeple,
The lanterns wag and glimmer low
In the storm by the hurrying people.

The houses all stand black and still,
The churches and taverns deserted,
And a body may now wend at his will,
With his own fancies diverted.

Not a squinting eye now looks