Csanta's eyes blazed. "It is impossible; it cannot be!" he said. "Yesterday they were at twenty."
"That was yesterday. To-day they are thirty. If you want to buy to morrow you will have to pay thirty-five. The whole world is buying the scrip. A rich nabob from India has brought all his silver here, and bought Puntafar shares. The Dey of Morocco and a Russian prince, who both own silver mines, have each ordered ten thousand shares. Even the little folk, who have only a few hundreds, are tearing the shares out of one another's hands; they won't have anything but Puntafar. What will you take?"
Csanta had very little idea that he united in his own person the East Indian nabob, the Dey of Morocco, and the Russian prince, as likewise that it was he who had caused this uproar. Far from such an idea crossing his mind, he believed that this man was making game of him.
"Oh, sir," he said, "thirty gulden exchange is too much. I can give you a thousand Bondavara shares at five-and-twenty."
These words caused such a tumult as hardly ever had been heard on 'change. Every one crowded round Csanta; he was set upon from all sides—behind, before, at his side, on his back—he was fairly mobbed. People fought with one another over his head, and flourished their fists in his face.
"Who is he? Who is he? A bear, a conspirator, a thief, an agent! Out with him! Bonnet him! Pitch him out! Twenty-five, will he take? Give him twenty-five blows on his back and tear his coat in pieces!"
Spitzhase could hardly manage to get him out. He was in a deplorable condition when he issued forth, his hat smashed, his clothes all awry, his face pale, his breath short. Once in the open air his rescuer began to scold him.
"What the devil did you do that for? Just at the moment when the cabal was silenced and trampled in the dust, to come forward as one of them to run down your own shares!"
"I did not want to run them down; I only wanted to ascertain if it was really the case that such an advance on the price could be realized."
"Oh, that's the way with you," returned Spitzhase, in an aggrieved tone. "Well, I can tell you the exchange is not a good place to try jokes in. It was all quite authentic. The Bondavara scrip is as sound as ready-money. To-day it is thirty for scrip, eight-and-twenty for gold; to-morrow it will be thirty-two, and so on—always getting higher. If I had the money I would put in my last farthing. I know what I know, and I have studied the weather on 'change, but what I have learned from Kaulmann I cannot tell; my lips are sealed."