First Expert—“Fore de Lord, I doesn’t know! Gwine to pay, think?”
Second Expert—“Gwine to pay? gwine to pay? Now you makes me laugh. Jes look at dat rock, Edward Arthur—look at dat side of it! See de pure chloroform dat’s percolated all ober it! Now ax me ef dat rock’s gwine to pay. Look at de formation and de stratification! Ax me ef dat rock’s gwine to pay! Why, you see you doesn’t know de fust principles ’bout dem oldah prefatory periods when dis here yearf was a multitudinous mass, floatin’ roun’ in a chaotic hemisphere; time o’ de propylites an jewrasic periods. Your ignorance perfectly affixes me.”
During the stock excitement on the Comstock, in 1872, a shrewd operator in stocks found himself in possession of an immense number of shares of Alpha mining-stock—many more shares than he cared to hold. He was a man who was and still is considered one of the sharpest operators on the lode. A word or even a hint from him was worth a whole mint of money. One day this “stock-sharp” said to his wife: “My dear, how much money have you got?”
“I have $6,000,” said the wife. “Why?”
“Put it all into the Alpha,” said her husband. “Ask no questions, but buy all the Alpha you can get. Be careful, however, not to mention to a living soul that I told you to do this.”
THE SECRET.
The wife faithfully promised that she would “not even breathe the name of the mine.” As soon as her husband was out of sight, she put on her hat and shawl and hurried away to the house of her married sister and gently murmured into her ear the news that Alpha was a “big buy.” That night the brother-in-law, Mr. Hornbeck, knew that there was a big speculation in Alpha; his folks and the Doolittles next heard of it, then the Turners, and Horners, and Huffs, and Howards—all the relations of the speculator’s wife, and the relations of their relations, were in possession of the grand secret in about three days, and about the fifth day all the bosom friends of all these knew that Alpha was going to “boom sky-high” and all were buying Alpha right and left.
Being in such great demand, the stock did “boom,” sure enough. All the time it was booming, and the wife’s relations were going for it, our shrewd manipulator and deep observer of human nature (feminine), was quietly feeding it out to them at the highest figures—not only to them, but to hundreds of others, for by this time about half the population of Virginia City had been confidentially informed that Alpha was the “greatest buy on the whole lead.”
Just what was to happen in the mine no one knew—no one pretended to know—but the grand head authority—away back so far along the line of knowing ones that few in the front ranks knew his name even—could not be mistaken. The general idea was that a grand development was about to be made in the mine. Some went so far as to say that a big strike had been made in one of the drifts on the lower-level of the mine months before, but that the drift had been boarded up for reasons best known to the officers of the company. This bit of news, it was said, had come out through one of the miners who was of the secret shift engaged in the drift when the rich ore—“almost pure silver,” some now began to assert with a considerable degree of positiveness—was struck.