These persons formed a confraternity, of which it seems I, or rather my prototype, Abram Skinner, was a prominent member; and the objects of the association were to secure to each member the fruits of his ambition with as little danger and trouble as possible. We were a knot of what the censorious call stock-gamblers; and by working in common, and playing into each other's hands, without taking pains to acknowledge any connexion, we were pretty sure of our game.
It is astonishing how soon I entered into the spirit of my new character. On previous occasions, the adaption of soul to body was a work of time; but here it seemed the work of but a few hours. The cause was, however, simple; Abram Skinner was possessed of but one, or, at most, two characteristics, and with these I easily became familiar. The love of money was the ruling passion; and this, I honestly confess, came to me so naturally, that I was not conscious, while giving up my whole soul to it, of any change of character whatever. Before I left the house I was as busy shaving notes, receiving bonds, mortgages, and pledges (for Abram Skinner was a gambler of all work), and devising schemes for "cornering" and blowing high and low in the stock-market, as if I had been born to the business.
I found on my books the records of all imaginable operations, from the mem. of a thousand shares of the Moonlight Manufacturing Company, bought of A. B. on time, to the entry of "Mrs. C. D.'s silver spoons and pitcher, purchased" (Abram Skinner scorned all dealing on pawns, that being illegal to the unlicensed) "at such a sum, but redeemable at such another sum, which was generally at fifty per cent. advance, on a certain day, or—forfeit." Here was a memorandum of a note bought at half its value, there of a mortgage taken in form of a purchase; and in other places a thousand other forfeitures, such as marked the extent and universality of business, the skill, the forethought, and the success of Abram Skinner the shaver.
I have my compunctions when I think of the life I led that winter; for so long did I continue the life of a money-maker. But I entreat the reader to remember that I had got into Abram Skinner's body, and that the burden of my acts should be therefore laid upon his shoulders. A swearing gentleman once borrowed a Quaker's great-coat, with a promise not to dishonour it by any profanity while it was on his back; upon returning it to his friend, he was demanded if he had kept his promise. "Yes," said the man of interjections, with one of the most emphatic; "but it has kept me lying all the time." I never heard anybody doubt that the lying was the fault of the coat; and, in like manner, I hope that the reader will not hesitate to attribute all my actions, while in Abram Skinner's body, to Abram Skinner's body itself.
Besides my friends of the honest fraternity, I had other visiters before my infirmities permitted me to leave the house; and the dealings I had with them, besides enabling me to get my hand in, as the saying is, would afford the reader, if described, some insight into the excellences of my new character.
But I cannot pause over such pictures in detail. The rulers then over us, to please the poor, had got up a pressure in the money-market, whereby the poor were, as is usual in such cases, put under contribution by the rich. Such a pressure, however, may be said to please everybody, though it puts everybody in a passion. To the rich, who have money to lend, it is as great a season of jubilee as a rain-storm to ducks, or a high wind to the bristly herd in an apple-orchard, and they are in a passion because they fear it will be soon over; to the poor, who borrow their money at a higher rate than usual, it affords an opportunity to rail at the aristocracy, and the grinders of the poor; which is a pleasing recreation after a bad dinner. At such times Abram Skinner was a happy man, for he made money without the trouble of stirring from his house: every knock at the door was the signal of a god-send; every jerk at the bell was as the jingle of coming dollars and cents.