These were the first glorious days of general speculation.  Railroads were emerging from the hands of the greater into the fingers of the lesser capitalists.  Two successful harvests had given a fearful stimulus to the national energy; and it appeared perfectly certain that all the populous towns would be united, and the rich agricultural districts intersected, by the magical bands of iron.  The columns of the newspapers teemed every week with the parturition of novel schemes; and the shares were no sooner announced than they were rapidly subscribed for.  But what is the use of my saying anything more about the history of last year?  Every one of us remembers it perfectly well.  It was a capital year on the whole, and put money into many a pocket.  About that time, Bob and I commenced operations.  Our available capital, or negotiable bullion, in the language of my friend, amounted to about three hundred pounds, which we set aside as a joint fund for speculation.  Bob, in a series of learned discourses, had convinced me that it was not only folly, but a positive sin, to leave this sum lying in the bank at a pitiful rate of interest, and otherwise unemployed, while every one else in the kingdom was having a pluck at the public pigeon.  Somehow or other, we were unlucky in our first attempts.  Speculators are like wasps; for when they have once got hold of a ripening and peach-like project, they keep it rigidly for their own swarm, and repel the approach of interlopers.  Notwithstanding all our efforts, 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 bit 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, while 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, while 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 burning 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 anything—­and we’ll start a railway for ourselves.”