The period had now arrived when the undertaking should be floated at the exchange. This, perhaps, is the greatest science on earth. The stock-exchange has its good and its bad days. Sometimes it is full of electricity, the sheep frolic in the meadow; at other times they hang their heads and will not touch the beautiful grass. Sometimes they come bleating to the shepherd to beg that he will shear them, for their wool presses too heavily on them; another day they butt their heads together and will not listen to their leader. Again, and no one can tell why, when the bell-wether begins to run, all the rest of the flock run after him; neither the shepherd nor his dog can stop them. The science lies in knowing when there is good weather on the stock-exchange. On a favorable day men are in such excellent humor—there is so much gold in every pocket, everything goes well—that even a company for the excavation and alienation of the icebergs would find bidders. On a bad day the best and safest speculation would get not a single offer.
It was on one of the good days that the Bondavara Coal Company made its début at the Vienna Stock-exchange. It caught on, and by the day on which the subscriptions should be paid into the Bank of Kaulmann came round it was necessary to have a military cordon drawn across the street, to allow the stream of people to pass through in any sort of order. The subscribers had, in fact, collected before the doors early in the morning; those who were strong trusted to their own strength to make way for themselves by elbow force. In the crush battered hats and torn coats were matters of small consequence; verbal insults and personal injuries, such as pushing and squeezing, were treated as nothing. The windows of the bank which looked on the street were burst open, and some excited individual called out:
"I subscribe ten thousand, a hundred thousand, a million!"
When at last six o'clock struck, and the doors of the bank were closed, a stentorian voice called from the balcony to the crowd below:
"The subscription is closed!"
What a disappointment for those who had not been able to get their money in in time! They went away dejected men.
The Bondavara mine had indeed "caught on." Instead of ten millions, eight hundred and twenty thousand millions had been subscribed. Did the subscribers really possess all that money? Certainly not. Each one deposited the tenth portion of the sum subscribed as a guarantee, and this only on paper; actual money the company did not as yet touch. Those who made part of the vast crowd, who tore the coats from one another's backs, were not blessed with a superfluity of money, neither had they the slightest interest in the production of coal, but to-day it is fine weather on the exchange; the Bondavara Company's bonds stand at par. Every one wanted to make this small profit; that done they care no more for the bonds or the company.
It is, however, a fact that trees do not grow in heaven. Prince Waldemar was at the head of the countermine, and he was one of the cleverest, most astute men "on 'change."
To understand the business the reader should be himself a speculator. It is carried on something after this fashion. Those who want to buy in are oftentimes men of straw; they merely want shares to sell them at once to the first bidder. As a natural consequence, this lowers the value; there is a fall, sometimes a total collapse. If the investment is a sound one it recovers vitality, and the shares go up again. There is, however, a way to guard against this trick. Almost every company has a syndicate, whose office is to ascertain whether the applicants for shares are men of straw or not. Pending the inquiry, the time is made use of to employ certain agents, to whom a free gift is made of, say, five hundred shares. These men immediately set up a tremendous uproar; they drive up the shares, they tear the certificates out of one another's hands, screaming out the high rate at which they are buying. But the general market sees no shares pass; the experienced ones know that this is all a well-acted farce, and that any one who has ready-money need only go to the fountain-head and buy as many shares as he wants at par. On the other hand, the bears are waiting their time to rush in and cause such a depreciation as will run down the shares to almost nothing. When they have got them at this low figure they may allow them to rise again.
The only one who loses in this cruel game is the small capitalist, who has ventured, poor soul, on ice, and who has sacrificed his little all at the shrine of the golden calf, taken his carefully hoarded store, his hard-earned salary out of his drawer, and has cast it upon these unprofitable waters, tempted by the tales of high interest, and the like. All of a sudden the bears have rushed in, the mine has exploded, his hopes are blown into air, vanished like a dream; his shares are so much waste-paper. He goes home certainly a sadder if not a wiser man. Well for him if he is not a beggar. This is how they manage matters on the stock-exchange.