“All of our readers will have understood that we are speaking of the Franco-American Society of Pennsylvania Oil-Wells, which for the last eight days has been the subject of universal excitement.
“On ‘Change the shares of a hundred dollars are quoted at 4-to-5.”
Blinding tears prevented Henrietta from going on. “Great God!” she exclaimed. “O God!” Then, mastering her weakness, she began once more to read,—
“And yet if ever any company seemed to offer all the material and moral guarantees which we can desire before risking our carefully saved earnings, this company presented them.
“It had at its head a man who in his day was looked up to as a statesman endowed with rare administrative talents, and whose reputation as a man of sterling integrity seemed to lie above all suspicion.
“Need we say that this was the ‘high and mighty Count Ville-Handry’?
“Hence they did not spare this great and noble name, but proclaimed it aloud on the housetops. It was the Count Ville-Handry here, and the Count Ville-Handry there. He was to bestow upon the country a new branch of industry. He was to change vile petroleum into precious gold.
“It was especially brought into notice that the noble count’s personal fortune was nearly equal to the whole capital of the new company,—ten millions. Hence he was risking his own money rather than the money of others.
“It is now a year since these dazzling promises were made. What remains of them all? Shares, worth five dollars yesterday, worth, perhaps, nothing at all to-morrow, and a more than doubtful capital.
“Who could have expected in our day a new edition of Law’s Mississippi Scheme?”