"How can you know their minds, sir?"

"By their leading columns."

"Those are no clue."

"What! Do they think one thing and print another? Why should the independent press do that? Nonsense."

"Why, sir? Because they are bribed to print it, but they are not bribed to think it."

"Bribed? The English press bribed?"

"Oh, not directly, like the English freeman. Oblige me with a journal or two, no matter which; they are all tarred with the same stick in time of bubble. Here, sir, are 50 pounds worth of bubble advertis.e.m.e.nts, yielding a profit of say 25 pounds on this single issue. In this one are nearer 100 pounds worth of such advertis.e.m.e.nts.

Now is it in nature that a newspaper, which is a trade speculation, should say the word that would blight its own harvest? This is the oblique road by which the English press is bribed. These leaders are mere echoes of to-day's advertis.e.m.e.nt sheet, and bidders for to-morrow's."

"The world gets worse every day, Skinner."

"It gets no better," replied Richard, philosophically.

"But, Richard, here is our county member, and ----, staid, sober men both, and both have pledged their honor on the floor of the House of Commons to the sound character of some of these companies."

"They have, sir; but they will never redeem the said honor, for they are known to be bribed, and not obliquely, by those very companies."

(The price current of M. P. honor, in time of bubble, ought to be added to the works of arithmetic.) "Those two Brutuses get 500 pounds apiece per annum for touting those companies down at Stephen's. ---- goes cheaper and more oblique. He touts, in the same place, for a gas company, and his house in the square flares from cellar to garret, gratis."

"Good gracious! and he talked of the light of conscience in his very last speech. But this cannot apply to all. There is the archbishop; he can't have sold his name to that company."

"Who knows? He is over head and ears in debt."

"But the duke, _he_ can't have."

"Why not? He is over head and ears in debt. Princes deep in debt by misconduct, and bishops deep in ditto by ditto, are half-honest, needy men; and half-honest, needy men are all to be bought and sold like hogs in Smithfield, especially in time of bubble."

"What is the world come to!"

"What it was a hundred years ago."

"I have got one pill left for him, Skinner. Here is the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a man whose name stands for caution, has p.r.o.nounced a panegyric on our situation. Here are his words quoted in this leader; now listen: 'We may safely venture to contemplate with instructive admiration the harmony of its proportions and the solidity of its basis.' What do you say to that?"

"I say it is one man's opinion versus the experience of a century.

Besides, that is a quotation, and may be a fraudulent one."

"No, no. The speech was only delivered last Wednesday: we will refer to it. Mum! mum! Ah, here it is. 'The Chancellor of the Exchequer rose and--' mum! mum! ah--'I am of--o-pinion that--if, upon a fair review of our situation, there shall appear to be nothing hollow in its foundation, artificial in its superstructure, or flimsy in its general results, we may safely venture to contemplate with instructive admiration the harmony of its proportions and the solidity of its basis.'"

"Ha! ha! ha! I quite agree with cautious Bobby. If it is not hollow, it may be solid; if it is not a gigantic paper balloon, it may be a very fine globe, and vice versa, which vice versa he in his heart suspects to be the truth. You see, sir, the mangled quotation was a swindle, like the flimsy superstructures it was intended to prop. The genuine paragraph is a fair sample of Robinson, and of the art of withholding opinion by means of expression. But as quoted, by a fraudulent suppression of one half, the unbalanced half is palmed off as a whole, and an indecision perverted into a decision.

I might just as fairly cite him as describing our situation to be 'hollow in its basis, artificial in its superstructure, flimsy in its general result.' Since you value names, I will cite you one man that has commented on the situation; not, like Mr. Robinson, by misty sentences, each neutralizing the other, but by consistent acts: a man, gentlemen, whose operations have always been numerous and courageous in less _prosperous_ times, yet now he is _out of everything_ but a single insurance company."

"Who is the gentleman?"

"It is not a gentleman; it is a blackguard," said the exact youth.

"You excite my curiosity. Who is the capitalist, then, that stands aloof?"

"Nathan Meyer Rothschild."

"The devil."

Old Skinner started sitting. "Rothschild hanging back. Oh, master, for Heavens sake don't let us try to be wiser than those devils of Jews.

Mr. Richard, I bore up pretty well against your book-learning, but now you've hit me with a thunderbolt. Let us get in gold, and keep as snug as mice, and not lend one of them a farthing to save them from the gallows. Those Jews smell farther than a Christian can see. Don't let's have any more 1793's, sir, for Heaven's sake. Listen to Mr.

Richard; he has been abroad, and come back with a head."

"Be quiet, Skinner. You seem to possess private information, Richard."

"I employ three myrmidons to hunt it; it will be useful by and by."

"It may be now. Remark on these proposals."

"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 pa.s.sed, 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 cla.s.s, 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 G.o.dsend 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 sh.e.l.l, 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?"

"Take them out of my sight," said old Hardie, starting up--"take them all out of my sight. Thank G.o.d I sent for you. No more discussion, no more doubt. Give me your hand, my son; you have saved the bank!"

The conference broke up with these eager words, and young Skinner retired swiftly from the keyhole.

The next day Mr. Hardie senior came to a resolution which saddened poor old Skinner. He called the clerks in and introduced them to Mr.

Richard as his managing partner.

"Every dog has his day," said the old gentleman. "Mine has been a long one. Richard has saved the bank from a fatal error; Richard shall conduct it as Hardie & Son. Don't be disconsolate, Skinner; I'll look in on you now and then."

Hardie junior sent back all the proposals with a polite negative. He then proceeded on a two-headed plan. Not to lose a shilling when the panic he expected should come, and to make 20,000 pounds upon its subsiding. Hardie & Son held Exchequer bills on rather a large scale.

They were at half a crown premium. He sold every one and put gold in his coffers. He converted in the same way all his other securities except consols. These were low, and he calculated they would rise in any general depreciation of more pretentious investments. He drew out his balance, a large one, from his London correspondent, and put his gold in his coffers. He drew a large deposit from the Bank of England.

Whenever his own notes came into the bank, he withdrew them from circulation. "They may hop upon Hardie & Son," said he, "but they shan't run upon us, for I'll cut off their legs and keep them in my safe."

One day he invited several large tradesmen in the town to dine with him at the bank. They came full of curiosity. He gave them a luxurious dinner, which pleased them. After dinner he exposed the real state of the nation, as he understood it. They listened politely, and sneered silently, but visibly. He then produced six large packets of his banknotes; each packet contained 3,000 pounds. Skinner, then present, enveloped these packets in cartridge-paper, and the guests were requested to seal them up. This was soon done. In those days a bunch of gigantic seals dangled and danced on the pit of every man's stomach. The sealed packets went back into the safe.

"Show us a sparkle o' gold, Mr. Richard," said Meredith, linen-draper and wag.