en arms, as "one
of the rising men of the time, my dear sir," a financier of distinction,
indeed, and a promoter of such skill that he had only to issue a
prospectus, or wink knowingly on the street, or take you aside at the
club and whisper confidentially to you, when everything he had issued,
winked at, or whispered about would go up with a rush, and countless men
and women--a goodly number were women--would be hundreds, nay, thousands
of pounds the richer before the week was out.

That his own buoyant imagination, as well as that of those who followed
his lead, should have been stretched to the utmost was quite within the
possibilities when one recollects that the basis of all this wealth was
crude rubber, a substance of pronounced elasticity. This, too, accounts
for the vim and suddenness of the final recoil attending the final
collapse--a recoil which smashed everything and everybody within its
reach.

There were "words," of course, between Dalton and some of his victims.
There always are "words" when the ball bounces back and you catch it
full in the eye. And for salves and soothing plasters there were the
customary explanations regarding the state of the market, the tightness
of money, the non-arrival of important details, the delaying of
despatches owing to a break in the cable, together with offers of heavy
discounts, and increased allotments of stock for renewed subscriptions.
But the end came, just as it always does.

And so did the aftermath, as was shown by the advertisements in the
auction columns of the daily papers and the motley mob of hungry,
perspiring dealers, pawing over the household gods; and, more disastrous
still, because of its rarity, Felix's brave fight to save his father's
name, the whole struggle ending in his own ruin.

As for the very pretty young woman who had been wearing the hat with
blue ribbons, it may be as well to remark that when the milk in the
heart of a woman has become slightly curdled, it is to be expected that,
under certain exciting influences, the whole will turn sour. When to
this curdling process is added the loss of her child and her fortune,
calamities made all the more insupportable by reason of an interview
lasting an hour in which her two hot hands were held in those of a
sympathetic man of thirty, her cheeks within an inch of his lips, the
quickest--in fact, the only way--yes, really the only way, to
prevent any further calamity is to put your best gown in your