rate souls?
Or been squeezed at a grand civic ball,
With dealers in tallow and coals?
Mere nothings are these, though the range
Through all we have noticed you've been,
When compared to the famed Stock Exchange,
That riotous gambling scene.

~111~~

The unexpected Legacy--Bernard Blackmantle and Bob Transit
visit Capel Court--Characters in the Stocks--Bulls, Bears
and Bawds, Brokers, Jews and Jobbers--A new Acquaintance,
Peter Principal--His Account of the Market--The Royal
Exchange--Tricks upon Travellers--Slating a Stranger--The
Hebrew Star and his Satellites--Dividend Hunters and
Paragraph Writers--The New Bubble Companies--Project
Extraordinary--Prospectus in Rhyme of the Life, Death,
Burial, and Resurrection Company--Lingual Localisms of the
Stock Exchange explained--The Art and Mystery of Jobbing
exposed--Anecdotes of the House and its Members--Flying a
Tile--Billy Wright's Brown Pony--Selling a Twister--A Peep
into Botany Bay--Flats and Flat-catchers--The Rotunda and
the Transfer Men--How to work the Telegraph--Create a Rise--
Put on the Pot--Bang down the Market--And waddle out a Lame
Duck.

A bequest of five hundred pounds by codicil from a rich old aunt had
most unexpectedly fallen to my friend Transit, who, quite unprepared for
such an overwhelming increase of good fortune, was pondering on the
best means of applying this sudden acquisition of capital, when I
accidentally paid him a visit in Half-moon Street. "Give me joy,
Bernard," said Bob; "here's a windfall;" thrusting the official notice
into my hand; "five hundred pounds from an old female miser, who during
her lifetime was never known to dispense five farthings for any generous
or charitable purpose; but being about to _slip her wind_ and make a
_wind-up_ of her accounts, was kind enough to remember at parting that
she had a poor relation, an ~112~~artist, to whom such a sum might prove
serviceable, so just hooked me on to the tail end of her testamentary
document and booked me this legacy, before she booked herself inside for
the other world. And now, my dear Bernard," continued Bob, "you are a
man of the world, one who knows

'What's what, and that's as high
As metaphysic wit can fly.'

I am puzzled, actually bewildered what to do with this accumulation of
wealth: only consider an ec