"Our friend here has a hundred thousand more in gas stock than he had a year ago, and I suspect that he is still a bear in the market," said his neighbor a chemist, who had just dropped in.
"If I lose I shall lay it to your advice."
"You did well to buy—if you sell at once," said the traveller, who was interested in the electric light to some unknown extent: "gas stock will finally have to go down."
"When the sun shines in the night, not before," asserted a young accountant from the gas-works who had been holding a private talk with the daughter of the house at the other corner of the room.
"Gas companies can manufacture at less cost than formerly," said the chemist.
"But yet gas has gone up again lately. You may thank the electric-light boom for the temporary respite you have had from poor gas at high prices."
"Yes; some of the companies put gas down lower than they could manufacture it, in order to hold their customers at a time when people almost believed that Edison's light would prove a success."
"But it was a success. It proved an excellent light, displayed a neat lamp, and gave no ill effects upon either the atmosphere or the eyes; and the perfect carbons showed a surprising endurance. The only difficulty is that the invention is not yet perfected so as to go immediately into use."
"But the lower part of the glasses becomes dark with deposited carbon," returned the chemist. "If carbons could be made to last long enough to render the lamps cheap, this smoking of the globes would set a limit at which the lamps would cease to be presentable; and the cleaning, and the exhausting of air again, are difficult and expensive."
"That remains to be proved. But coal is sure to grow dearer."