re of wreckwood, to measure ingots by the bucketful
on the uproarious beach; such an one might realise a greater material
spoil; he should have no more profit of romance than Pinkerton when he
cast up his weekly balance-sheet in a bald office. Every dollar gained
was like something brought ashore from a mysterious deep; every venture
made was like a diver's plunge; and as he thrust his bold hand into the
plexus of the money-market he was delightedly aware of how he shook the
pillars of existence, turned out men, as at a battle-cry, to labour in
far countries, and set the gold twitching in the drawers of
millionaires.

I could never fathom the full extent of his speculations; but there were
five separate businesses which he avowed and carried like a banner. The
_Thirteen Star Golden State Brandy, Warranted Entire_ (a very flagrant
distillation) filled a great part of his thoughts, and was kept before
the public in an eloquent but misleading treatise, "Why Drink French
Brandy? A Word to the Wise." He kept an office for advertisers,
counselling, designing, acting as middleman with printers and
bill-stickers, for the inexperienced or the uninspired: the dull
haberdasher came to him for ideas, the smart theatrical agent for his
local knowledge, and one and all departed with a copy of his pamphlet,
"How, When, and Where; or, The Advertiser's Vade-Mecum." He had a tug
chartered every Saturday afternoon and night, carried people outside the
Heads, and provided them with lines and bait for six hours' fishing, at
the rate of five dollars a person. I am told that some of them
(doubtless adroit anglers) made a profit on the transaction.
Occasionally he bought wrecks and condemned vessels; these latter (I
cannot tell you how) found their way to sea again under aliases, and
continued to stem the waves triumphantly enough under the colours of
Bolivia or Nicaragua. Lastly, there was a certain agricultural engine,
glorying in a great deal of vermilion and blue paint, and filling (it
appeared) a "long-felt want," in which his interest was something like a
tenth.

This for the face or front of his concerns. "On the outside," as he
phrased it, he was variously and mysteriously engaged. No dollar slept
in his possession; rather, he kept all simultaneously flying, like a
conjurer with oranges. My own earnings, when I began to have a share, he
would but show me for a moment, and disperse again, like those illusive
money gifts which are flas