IN ON THE GROUND FLOOR.
Among them was one who, by a lucky circumstance, was in the very building where we were assembled. He was sent for, and came to our meeting.
He confirmed all that had been said by the rosy-lipped speculator; in fact, he confirmed a great deal more than had been said by the latter. Our thoughts, as we listened to him, were like those of the Queen of Sheba when she looked at the bank account of King Solomon.
We hastened to pay our money and secure our shares of the greatest silver mine of this or any other age. In a few days we obtained the certificates of our stock. They were beautiful specimens of the lithographer’s art, and nearly as large as a first-class morning newspaper. Of course there could be no doubt of the genuineness of an undertaking that was set forth on certificates like these.
Time passed on; that is to say, a few weeks passed on. We visited the office of the company every day or two, and heard nothing but the most glowing accounts. We heard daily of unfortunate and grief-stricken individuals who had been left out in the cold, who were seeking frantically to obtain some of the Revenue stock, but found, to their sorrow, that none was to be had. Each of us had invested his one thousand dollars, and was not allowed to invest more. Those miserable beings who had not been in on the ground floor, and were anxious to buy, were offering,—so we were told,—a hundred per cent. advance for shares, but none of us would sell. We scorned to double our money when we should soon begin to receive every month an amount equal to our investment. Never did a bull-dog cling with more tenacity to the under jaw of another bull-dog than we clung to the stock of the Revenue.
MORE MONEY.
But soon our picture of coming wealth began to lose its brightness. Our first dividend was an Irish one. As soon as the sixty thousand dollars were paid in, we were told that the sixty thousand dollars had gone for the purchase of the mine; that is to say, our half interest in it. Thirty thousand dollars were now needed for the purchase of a mill. Of what use would be a mine without a mill?
We admitted the force of this reasoning, and, not without much grumbling, we raised the money to purchase the mill. With the innocence of toothless and milk-imbibing infants we supposed that the purchase of a mill would put our mine in a paying condition.