mpany's bonds
stand at par. Every one wanted to make this small profit; that done
they care no more for the bonds or the company.

It is, however, a fact that trees do not grow in heaven. Prince
Waldemar was at the head of the countermine, and he was one of the
cleverest, most astute men "on 'change."

To understand the business the reader should be himself a speculator.
It is carried on something after this fashion. Those who want to buy
in are oftentimes men of straw; they merely want shares to sell them
at once to the first bidder. As a natural consequence, this lowers the
value; there is a fall, sometimes a total collapse. If the investment
is a sound one it recovers vitality, and the shares go up again. There
is, however, a way to guard against this trick. Almost every company
has a syndicate, whose office is to ascertain whether the applicants
for shares are men of straw or not. Pending the inquiry, the time is
made use of to employ certain agents, to whom a free gift is made of,
say, five hundred shares. These men immediately set up a tremendous
uproar; they drive up the shares, they tear the certificates out of
one another's hands, screaming out the high rate at which they are
buying. But the general market sees no shares pass; the experienced
ones know that this is all a well-acted farce, and that any one who
has ready-money need only go to the fountain-head and buy as many
shares as he wants at par. On the other hand, the bears are waiting
their time to rush in and cause such a depreciation as will run down
the shares to almost nothing. When they have got them at this low
figure they may allow them to rise again.

The only one who loses in this cruel game is the small capitalist, who
has ventured, poor soul, on ice, and who has sacrificed his little all
at the shrine of the golden calf, taken his carefully hoarded store,
his hard-earned salary out of his drawer, and has cast it upon these
unprofitable waters, tempted by the tales of high interest, and the
like. All of a sudden the bears have rushed in, the mine has exploded,
his hopes are blown into air, vanished like a dream; his shares are so
much waste-paper. He goes home certainly a sadder if not a wiser man.
Well for him if he is not a beggar. This is how they manage matters on
the stock-exchange.

CHAPTER XIX

FILTHY LUCRE

In the town of X---- there is a street called Greek Street. It is a
circle, or crescent, of pretty houses, which at