“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 passed, 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 class, 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 godsend you would have been to these Jeremy Diddlers, you and the ten thousand they would have bled you of.”
The old banker turned pale.