But Dibble was only suffering from the panic. He had been tempted by the financial sunshine--and Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs--and had bought the shares of a company that had made a call and failed, and of another whose shares had fallen from 10_l._ a share to 5_l._ worse than nothing. It had been brought about in this wise: Mr. Gibbs was indebted to Mr. Dibble for many little acts of courtesy and attention, as a visitor to Mr. Richard Tallant at the Iron Company’s offices. Thomas had always a chair and a polite submissive word for Mr. Gibbs, and so one day that gentleman, arguing correctly that Mr. Dibble must have saved a few hundred pounds, kindly showed that confiding porter how to make a few hundreds more; and Mr. Thomas Dibble, in the simplicity of his nature, became a bull, without the knowledge of his better-half. Whispers of the panic had come into the big company’s offices where Thomas portered it, and at last he began to understand that his five hundred pounds were tossed about in the storm, and liable to be sunk and lost for ever; and on the day in question, when Thomas went home and confessed that he was a bull in a panic, and other similarly insane things, Mr. Gibbs had explained to him his position, and advised him to consider his money lost for the present, but consoling him with stories of the immense losses which other people had suffered. “Mr. Gibbs advised me to do it,” said Dibble. “Do what, you fool?” shouted Mrs. Dibble, who lost all patience with him. “Speckerlate with the five hundred pounds which we had at the bank,” said Thomas. “We had--_we_ had, Mithther Dibble: it wath my own money, Thomath, and you have never dared to touch it?” said Mrs. D., her face white and her eyes flashing. “I touched it to make a thousand of it, Maria; that were my full intention.” “Oh, you monthter! Oh, Dibble, Dibble! Oh, Thomath, Thomath! I thee it all--you have lost the money!” “Ise afraid on it, that I be,” said Dibble. “The bull sells, and the bear buys. ‘If you bear the market now,’ Mr. Gibbs says, ‘you may get right;’ but, oh Lord! oh dear, Maria! Ise quite lost! What be I to do? what be I to do?” Poor Dibble lifted up his arms, and looked appealingly towards his furious wife, who sunk back in her chair with a scream for water. The wretched bull, glad of any diversion from the main point, rushed to his wife’s assistance. She had really fainted, this strong-minded Mrs. Dibble, who could think for everybody, and conduct the government of the country if necessary.