My chief strength, indeed, was shown in the management of small stocks, and especially those that were good for nothing, and more especially still in southern mining-companies. It was here that we of the Clipping Club, as the members of the fraternity delighted to call themselves, found our fairest opportunity to prey upon those passions of cupidity and terror which lay the ignorant at the mercy of the knowing. No one knew better than myself how to get up or depress such a stock. I knew how many ignorant widows, poor parsons, infirm artisans, and other needy persons were to be cajoled, by the prospect of handsome and increasing dividends, to invest their petty savings when it could be done at small premiums; and I knew how easily the terror of loss could drive them out of their investments. To say the truth, the principal business of myself and my brother clippers was to bob for such minnows; and it is incredible how they bite, though it is only to be bitten. A few words scattered at random, and still fewer uttered in confidence, were enough to send shoals of these unlucky creatures to swallow what we thought proper to sell; and a few doubts and long faces, added to the throwing away at low prices of a _few_ dozen shares, sufficed to convert the trembling holders into sellers, whenever we deemed it advisable to buy. In this way I have known a pet stock to be tossed up and down like a ball, while every ascent and downfall served the purpose of filling the pockets of the fraternity and emptying those of the victims. In such occupations as these passed three months of my existence, and, sinner that I am, I thought that they passed very honestly. The spirit of Abram Skinner had left such a taint of rascality in his body, that my own was thoroughly imbued with it; from which I infer that a man's body is like a barrel, which, if you salt fish in it once, will make fish of every thing you put into it afterward. A grain of lying or thieving, or any such spicy propensity, infused into the youthful breast by a tender parent, will give a scent to the spirit for life; and as this is a fact, I recommend parents to take no notice of it,--not supposing parents will take advice, except by contraries. The passion of Abram Skinner destroyed every trait that had belonged to Sheppard Lee; and as for those I had taken from John H. Higginson and I. D. Dawkins, they were lost in like manner. I was Abram Skinner, and nothing but Abram Skinner. I scarce remembered that I had ever been any thing else. I am free now to confess, what I was not so certain of then, though I had my doubts on the matter at times,--namely, that in labouring so hard after lucre, I was only striving to sell my soul to the greatest advantage.