Mrs. Chapman seemed to have increased in circumference and loftiness. She could get new and expensive dresses, and silk ones at that, every time she went to New York, and she went quite often now. And none of her neighbors could wear such fine lace on their caps. It was surprising to see how this fat, fussy woman could toss her head and talk of common people now. It was very annoying, she said, to have to live in a little country town like Nyack, and mix with everybody. Then her dear little intellectually great Chapman was such a jewel of a husband, and was so clever at inventing the means of making a fortune for other people. The brain of Nyack was terribly disordered over the fortunes that were to be made in a month for all who invested in Kidd Discovery stock. Even the good Dominie, led away by the temptation, had invested all his savings, and had his pockets full of Chapman's "equivalents," from which he looked for a fortune in a very short time. Finally the innocent settlers began to regard Chapman as a great genius, who had invented this new way of making their fortunes out of sheer goodness. "I want to tell you, my good friends," he would say to them, patronizingly, "you will appreciate me better as we become better acquainted. Invest your money, and there's a fortune for you all." And they took his word, and invested their money, and, many of them, everything they had. We must go back into the city now. It was a morning in early May. Knots of men were standing on the corners of Wall and Pearl streets, each discussing in animated tones some question of finance or trade. Men with hurried steps and curious faces passed to and fro, threading their way through the pressing throng, as if the nation was in peril and they were on a mission to save it. And yet it was only an expression of that eagerness which our people display in their haste to despatch some object in the ordinary business routine of the day.