CHAPTER X 



BUBBLES 



"He must needs go whom the devil drives," 

 and the devil was driving me. I had assumed 

 a burden beyond all reason, which no normal suc- 

 cess of the Wall Street of that day could carry. 

 I had a moribund steamship company on my 

 hands which had to be kept going by the use of 

 tonics and stimulants, and an overloaded enter- 

 prise of much promise, yet dependent upon the 

 uncertain popular whim, and which called for 

 cash with a persistency that made the cries of the 

 daughters of the horseleech, "Give! Give!" seem 

 lifeless and intermittent. Yet demands were 

 met and maturing notes paid, while again the 

 gold business came to the front, but never again 

 as of old, for there were new and dangerous ele- 

 ments in the field, that were in Wall Street but 

 not of it. For Fisk and Gould were wreckers 



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