“And so there is a vein, my boy, and we are just getting into it; deposites are always the first thing we look for in copper mining. As long as we have them we get on swimmingly; but you are so confoundedly skittish! I was just going to tell you, that in making the ‘cross-cut,’ Uptosnuff has struck ‘the master vein!’ and found an old ‘drift’ in the mountain, which you will see after a while, is important. In it he found old hatchets, and hammers, and images in copper, supposed to have been the rude efforts at mining and smelting by the Indians long ago—say before the Dutch had taken Holland, or achieved the renowned name of Knickerbockers, and had gone home copper-fastened.”
Information so desirable as this would work its way out somehow, and gentlemen would now bet you a trifle—say champagne and cigars—that a dividend of twenty-five per cent. would be declared on the stock the first year; or would give you a hundred dollars for agreeing to pay the annual dividend on a hundred shares.
Jones is “satisfied now,” and forthwith buys five hundred shares more, as do other Joneses, and Browns, and Greens. Outsiders became as plenty as gooseberries, and as verdant; and it would seem, from the number of shares reported at the Board, and “after,” that certificates had quadrupled, and never could multiply fast enough to supply the demand. Indeed, as one old gentleman was heard to end a prolonged whistle, by exclaiming—“Gas!” the market became so inflated that the Joneses, Browns, and Greens, declined the attempt of cornering the stock, in despair.
“The company,” called for an additional installment at once. “Why, what the deuce,” asks Jones, “does the company want with more installments? Haven’t they got copper enough!”
“Copper ore, my dear fellow,” responded Grubemout. “Yes, lots of it. But Uptosnuff wasn’t brought up in a Cornish mine for nothing. The furnaces at Baltimore and Boston want it for half-price, but as they are nearly out, we intend to make them smoke, ha! ha! But we must go to the expense of an “adate” in the meanwhile.”
“Why, what’s the use of that—what good will that do?” asks Jones. “What is an adate, anyway?”
Poor Jones had a good deal yet to learn about copper-mining, and felt naturally alarmed at these ominous terms. The “cross-cut” was the beginning of puzzlers. He had yet to see—I may as well say he ultimately did see, “the drift,” to help along “the pumps,” as well as the adate with installments, and to become familiar with a variety of mining lore, which assists knowledge in its acquisition, by obligingly allowing us to pay for it. But I believe he never did understand “what they wanted with so many work-shops—he thought they were miners!”
“An adate, Jones, is only a drain to relieve the mine when it is overcharged with water.”
“Oh! is that all!”
But this calling in of installments seems to be a sort of patent condenser in the stock market, and shows with how much force a given quantity of air can be squeezed into a given compass.