s, and very ingenious ones they were, we
never, in a single instance, succeeded in procuring an allocation of
original shares; and though we did now and then make a hit by
purchase, we more frequently bought at a premium, and parted with our
scrip at a discount. At the end of six months, we were not twenty
pounds richer than before.

"This will never do," said Bob, as he sat one evening in my rooms
compounding his second tumbler. "I thought we were living in an
enlightened age; but I find I was mistaken. That brutal spirit of
monopoly is still abroad and uncurbed. The principles; of free-trade
are utterly forgotten, or misunderstood. Else how comes it that David
Spreul received but yesterday an allocation of two hundred shares in
the Westermidden Junction; whilst your application and mine, for a
thousand each, were overlooked? Is this a state of things to be
tolerated? Why should he, with his fifty thousand pounds, receive a
slapping premium, whilst our three hundred of available capital
remains unrepresented? The fact is monstrous, and demands the
immediate and serious interference of the legislature."

"It is a bloody shame," said I, fully alive to the manifold advantages
of a premium.

"I'll tell you what, Dunshunner," rejoined M'Corkindale, "it's no use
going on in this way. We haven't shown half pluck enough. These
fellows consider us as snobs, because we don't take the bull by the
horns. Now's the time for a bold stroke. The public are quite ready to
subscribe for any thing--and we'll start a railway for ourselves."

"Start a railway with three hundred pounds of capital!"

"Pshaw, man! you don't know what you're talking about--we've a great
deal more capital than that. Have not I told you seventy times over,
that every thing a man has--his coat, his hat, the tumblers he drinks
from, nay, his very corporeal existence--is absolute marketable
capital? What do you call that fourteen-gallon cask, I should like to
know?"

"A compound of hoops and staves, containing about a quart and a half
of spirits--you have effectually accounted for the rest."

"Then it has gone to the fund of profit and loss, that's all. Never
let me hear you sport those old theories again. Capital is
indestructible, as I am ready to prove to you any day, in half an
hour. But let us sit down seriously to business. We are rich enough
to pay for the advertisements, and that is all we need care for in the
mean time. The public is sure to step