t PUNCHINELLO'S intention to overlook Wall street, may be
absolutely taken at par. To look over Wall street is quite another
matter, and P. knows how to do it to a T. Many a time at midnight, from
his perch on the tip of the spire of Old Trinity, (a tip-top point from
which to look over Wall street--you see the point?) has PUNCHINELLO
beheld the ghosts of dead speculations floating hopelessly through the
murky air. It could not be said of them that there was "no speculation
in those eyes." The ghost of a dead speculation was never so utterly
damned, the eyes of a ghost of a dead speculation were never so
absolutely dimmed, but that speculation of some kind might be discerned
fluttering like a mummy-cloth from the shadowy outline of the former,
and gleaming feebly from the gloomy goggles of the latter. Gleam on,
poor ghosts! Goggle while you may, and gibber. PUNCHINELLO watches you
with interest, (25 per cent.,) as you are weighed down to the very dirt
of The Street by the night-fog of Despair, flapping your wings on a very
small "margin," as if attempting vainly to "operate for a rise." Go
down, poor ghosts; repair to your incandescent place below, for there is
no hope for you. As we sit here upon our spire, we can not say to you,
_Dum spiramus speramus_. Alas! no. We would like to do so, of course;
but our sense of truth revolts against the enunciation of such a
taradiddle.

Soon after daylight has been fully turned on, it is the wont of
PUNCHINELLO to descend from his perch on the church, (rhyme,) and roam
waywardly and invisibly among the denizens who occupy the dens of The
Street. He knows all the ins and outs of the place, and has long been
disgustingly familiar with its ups and downs. Gently has he dabbled in
stocks, and no modern operator is half so conversant an he is with the
juggles of the Stock Exchange. PUNCHINELLO, though as fresh and frisky,
in mind and body, as a kid on a June morning, is older than he chooses
to let every body know. Bless you all, readers dear! he was by when the
Tulip Mania was hatched, (mixed figure,) and it was he who punctured the
great South Sea Bubble, and sent it on a burst. Ha! ha! he-e-e!--how he
laughs when he recurs to those days of the long, long ago, with their
miserable little swindles, no better than farthing candles, (allowable
rhyme,) and their puny dodges devised for flagellating LUCIFER round a
stump.

Just think of a lot of fellows pretending to play at Tulipmaniacs