The ship was now headed for Puntas Arenas, where many years ago the Spaniards founded a penal settlement. Intermarrying has, however, reduced the people to mere dwarfs in stature; and they have so retrograded in civilization that they are the greatest thieves and the worst savages to be found along the coast. CHAPTER XIX. MAKING A FORTUNE Kidd Company stock was a feature in Wall street. The firm of Topman and Gusher, having luminated the great Kidd Discovery Company, had got it fairly on its feet in that mart of the money-changers. The firm was considered highly respectable now, and had counting-rooms in Pearl street, near Wall, second floor, furnished in a style of elegance it would be difficult to surpass, even at this day. If you would fortify the standing of a great and enterprising firm, Topman said, in his polite way, you must do it with elegant and elaborate furniture in your counting-room. Show is the thing two-thirds of the people in the world are attracted and deluded by. The newspapers, too, were telling curious stories as to how Kidd's treasure was discovered, and also making statements of a very unreliable nature, setting forth that already several million dollars had been recovered, and that any man engaged in it would surely make a fortune for his heirs, no matter how numerous. The more unreasonable these statements were, the more readily did people invest in the stock. Not a solid man in Wall street had heard of the firm of Topman and Gusher eight months ago. The great beacon lights of the street now condescended to bow and shake hands with Topman, to take more than a glance at the firm's name when it was brought to their notice on certain bits of paper which the enterprising firm, for mere convenience sake, gave now and then as "equivalents". In short, Mr. Topman was a man of such impressive manners that he quite captivated Wall street, and to have those solid-pocketed old gentlemen speak encouragingly of the house, was, he considered, gaining a great financial victory. In addition to this Topman lived in a fine house, sumptuously furnished, on the west side of Bowling Green, had a servant in livery to open the door, and rode in his own carriage. Mrs. Topman was a showy, dashing woman of thirty-five, or thereabouts, tall and slender, and somewhat graceful of figure, and might have passed for a beauty at twenty. But there was a faded look about her now, and she had a weakness for loud talking and overdressing. She was evidently a woman of doubtful blood, and "no family," as society would say in these days. Indeed, first-rate society, such as Bowling Green boasted of in those days, considered itself very select, and dealt out its favors to new-comers with a cautious reserve.