Eh, bien!_ had
the invention only proved a fiction then!

"In another six months we had matured our plans, and, as our present
business seemed lamentably slow in the light of my gigantic projects, I
was eager enough to begin work in earnest. I had proved our telegraph
thoroughly, and, ere I set out for London, to establish there a branch
of the house of John Meavy & Co., I advised my good comrade to venture
largely, so as to turn our capital over as often as possible, for there
was no room for doubt or fear. But John did not guess how high I dreamed
of rising in fortune; _he_ had no ambition to rival the Rothschilds.

"Monsieur, let me explain to you now the system of work we had agreed
upon, and each slightest detail of which was perfectly familiar to
us from constant manipulation, so that mistake or mishap, from any
conceivable cause, was utterly impossible.

"Our business, nominally the buying of breadstuffs for exportation, was
really one of speculation upon the New York market _as affected_ by the
European markets,--a species of brokerage, which, ostensibly and in
the eyes of the world attended by great risk, was really a thing of
specifically safe and certain profits, thanks to the telegraphic system,
the secret of which we alone possessed. In our tentative efforts, we
fixed upon _flour_ as the best-adapted subject for our experiments,
being a commodity simple to deal with, and requiring fewer complications
in our arrangements than anything else. But, in my own private mind, I
had resolved, that, as soon as our capital had grown large enough,
and our credit was become sufficiently extensive, we would change our
business to that of buying and selling cotton, as a better speculative;
or, perhaps, would enter upon that grand arena of sudden fortune and
sudden ruin, the stock-market. For the present, however, flour suited
us well enough. It is well known, that, at that time, much more than at
present, the price of breadstuffs in New York was regulated by the price
in Liverpool. But Monsieur is not a merchant, I think? _Eh, bien_!--then
I must take care to make myself intelligible. You know, Monsieur, that,
in the stock-market especially, and more or less in every other kind of
speculation, the greater part of the transactions are _fictitious_, to
a certain extent. _Par exemple:_ you buy or you sell so many barrels of
flour, at such a price, _on time_, as it is called,--that is, you engage
to receive, or to deliver,