“Well, sir, two of them are based on gold mines, shares at a fabulous premium. Now no gold mine can be worked to a profit by a company. _Primo:_ Gold is not found in veins like other metals. It is an abundant metal made scarce to man by distribution over a wide surface. The very phrase gold mine is delusive. _Secundo:_ Gold is a metal that cannot be worked to a profit by a company for this reason: workmen will hunt it for others so long as the daily wages average higher than the amount of metal they find per diem; but, that Rubicon once passed, away they run to find gold for themselves in some spot with similar signs; if they stay, it is to murder your overseers and seize your mine. Gold digging is essentially an individual speculation. These shares sell at 700 pounds apiece; a dozen of them are not worth one Dutch tulip-root. Ah! here is a company of another class, in which you have been invited to be director; they would have given you shares and made you liable.” Mr. Richard consulted his note-book. “This company, which 'commands the wealth of both Indies'--in perspective--dissolved yesterday afternoon for want of eight guineas. They had rented offices at eight guineas a week, and could not pay the first week. 'Turn out or pay,' said the landlord, a brute absorbed in the present, and with no faith in the glorious future. They offered him 1,500 pounds worth of shares instead of his paltry eight guineas cash. On this he swept his premises of them. What a godsend you would have been to these Jeremy Diddlers, you and the ten thousand they would have bled you of.” The old banker turned pale. “Oh, that is nothing new, sir. _'To-morrow_ the first lord of the treasury calls at my house, and brings me 11,261 pounds 14s. 11 3/4d., which is due to me from the nation at twelve of the clock on that day; you couldn't lend me a shilling till then, could ye?' Now for the loans. Baynes upon Haggart want 2,000 pounds at 5 per cent.” “Good names, Richard, surely,” said old Hardie, faintly. “They were; but there are no good names in time of bubble. The operations are so enormous that in a few weeks a man is hollowed out and his frame left standing. In such times capitalists are like filberts; they look all nut, but half of them are dust inside the shell, and only known by breaking. Baynes upon Haggart, and Haggart upon Baynes, the city is full of their paper. I have brought some down to show it to you. A discounter, who is a friend of mine, did it for them on a considerable scale at thirty per cent discount (cast your eye over these bills, Haggart on Baynes). But he has burned his fingers even at that, and knows it. So I am authorized to offer all these to you at fifty per cent discount.” “Good heavens! Richard!” “If, therefore, you think of doing rotten apple upon rotten pear, otherwise Haggart upon Baynes, why do it at five per cent when it is to be had by the quire at fifty?”