But this common phenomenon was not taking place in January, 1895. Gullible as the poor lambs usually are, it is necessary to allow their fickle memories to forget before seeking to victimize them by a repetition of a stale trick. A steady, persistent advance in prices went on during the early days of the new year without any of the usual accompanying conditions of “improved trade,” “better commercial prospects,” “signs of a great business revival,” “sound state of the banks and national Treasury.” The usual crop of sanguine interviews with “leading business men” which appears in the newspapers every New Year’s Day had been dubiously small and weak. In fact, Wall Street had none of the common bait with which it allures old and new victims. Whence, then, came the sudden strength which had supplanted the almost unerring symptoms of pending collapse? CHAPTER VII. STRANGE EVENTS IN THE FINANCIAL WORLD. The history of the financial world for the next two months was peculiar. The markets of London and of all Europe were affected by the strange conditions which developed in America. Prices of all classes of securities continued abnormally high. There had been some advance above the figures at which settlements had been made on that memorable 2d of January. Sound dividend paying stocks commanded prices which yielded on the average less than four per cent to the investor. No commercial or industrial depression, no bad news from any quarter, no offerings by holders of stock anxious to unload, had any effect upon Wall Street quotations. But the market was by no means a healthy one. Speculation had almost ceased--perhaps a good thing in itself, but the reason for it had no virtuous significance. Even speculators will not play a game they know they do not understand, and nobody understood the great game which an unknown power was playing quite in its own way in the stock market. There seemed to be no limit to its resources. Careful observers of its operations in the Exchange estimated that it had expended fully $125,000,000 in cash within two months. Who was this new master of millions, this incognito king of finance? He must be some new-come conqueror. Of that everybody was convinced. All the veteran gladiators of the stock arena had one after another been suspected, but had declared their innocence and had proved it. They were as much in the dark as everybody else.