It is experiences like this which convince a man that these are indeed times of depression. And everything deepens the feeling. See the lines of people waiting to buy the best seats for musical comedies and hockey-matches! See them crowding into the cabarets at midnight! And the jolly little dance-and-supper parties after the show in homes where the cellar has not yet been entirely despoiled of its treasures!
All this is merely a proof of general anguish of mind. They are seeking for respite and nepenthe and surcease of sorrow. They are dying game, so to speak. If they were to sit down quietly at home and think things over, they might become so desperate as to cut down their expenses. So they roll out the old touring-car instead, and collect a few congenial spirits, and possibly some more spirits under the cushion of the back seat, and go—but it doesn't matter so much now where one goes. All towns are alike.
Of course, there are financial giants, whose position is so secure that no money panic can ever disturb their equilibrium or equanimity. We called on one the other evening—two floors up over a grocery store. It was a cold night, the heat was off, he was wearing his overcoat in the house, and was feeding old newspapers into the parlor grate. In the intervals he was reading Anatole France in the original, and consulting a big French dictionary every line or so.
"Come in," he roared, "and help feed the fire. I've left the hero in a delicate and somewhat improper position, and I want to see if anything happened. I'll tell you in a minute." And he reached for the dictionary.
We intimated that we would certainly like to know if anything of an indelicate nature occurred, so that we might rush right out and report the matter to the proper authorities.
"But how can you be interested in such things as that," we enquired, "when hundreds of your fellow-millionaires and near-millionaires—they are human beings after all—are writhing in financial agony? Have you any European holdings, any Russian roubles, or anything of that sort?"
"I'm not holding 'em any longer," he said with a shameless grin. "I gave them to the butcher as an instalment on last month's bill."
"But you must have some stocks on margin—are they properly covered?" we persisted. That's the kind of fellow we are, always looking for information—the more unpleasant the better.
"Huh, what's that?" he grunted, after a long pause during which he had been hunting feverishly for a word. "What's that, margins? Are my margins covered? Sure, they're covered, old top—and so are the missus's and the kid's. Our margins are all protected from the weather—also our chests and such other places as one usually takes cold in."
But what's the use of talking to a man like that? He shut the book with a bang and reached for the tobacco-jar.