"What say you to the South Sea bubble, my dear?"
"What say I!—just what I say of the Tulip bubble, of the Mississippi Scheme, of the Merino Sheep enterprise, of the Down-East Timber lands, of the Morus Multicaulis, of the California fever, and the Cuba hallucination. They are periodical outbreaks of commercial enterprise, unavoidable in the very nature of things, and never long, nor safely postponed; growing out of a plethora—never out of a scarcity—a plethora of wealth and population, and corresponding, in the regularity of their returns, with the plague and the cholera."
"And these are what you have called bubbles?"
"Precisely."
"And yet, if I understood you aright, when you said, 'I go for bubbles—hurrah for bubbles'—you meant to speak well of them?"
"To be sure I did—certainly—yes—no—so far as a magazine article goes, I did."
"But a magazine article, my love—bear with me, I pray you—ought to be something better than a brilliant paradox, hey?"
"Go on—I like this."
"If you will promise not to be angry."
"I do."