Show efrom london society moneymaking MONEY maring MAKING ON THE STOCK EXCHANGE CONTINUED in the tha beginning of the last century a certain gentleman being about to retire from fron business and leave that part of the country in which he then resided advertised his effects for sale they were a magnificent palace with great variety of gardens statues and water works likewise several castle castles svery very delightfully light fully situated as also groves forests fountains hild and country seats with very pleasant prospects on 1 all sides of them from which the reader who went no further inferred very naturally that whatever the gen clemans tl emans business might ha hae have e been he had done pretty well at it but to the reader who turned over the first lea iea af pf the sale bale catalogue there dawned a nev neyr light on looking gli the tho inventory of minor effects he saw that along with the above named important properties there were to besold A acoach coach very finely gilt and little used I 1 wha couple coupie of dragons a sea consisting of a dozen large waves the tenth larger than ordinary but ut a uttie little damaged a ri dozen and a half of clouds trimmed with black and in good condition three bottles and a half of lightning one shower of snow in the whitest of french papery two showers of a browner kind 96 ai a 96 rainbow a little faded a moon something decayed a setting sun SUB a bowl suitable for making thunder a cradie cradle cradle cradie a rack a cartwheel a gibbet an altar a helmet a tub and a jointed I 1 baby the tho curious may read the auction auctioneers aers ders bill at greater length in the tattler of that day but probably without turning up that lively periodic i caig cali cal cai a near guess will be made as to the nature of the business from froin 1 w which n ieh ich the proprietor was retiring and if any s suspicions were aroused of the value as realizable assets of the palaces and anji ansi estates which had been so curiously fuini furnished shed such suspicion will he be easily allowed to have been in a measure excusable cu sable Lawr lawrenne lawrence eune eure reeve as we said was not a reading man but he was no not t qui quite it e indifferent dlf dif to the pleasure of books and since kates katas marriage and the consequent contraction of ane family circle he had rather liked that they who were left should sit and while away an evening hour sometimes with a booke he ahe loved to hear the pleasant voice remaining daughter anna and left her to choose her own volumes it happened that one evening she picked up the tattler and read out of it this fanciful inventory which we have summarized above they had a merry laugh over i it and reeve beeve happy in irl that ignorance which is often so in much tich ilch more blissful than knowledge did not find as he m might ight have found a ghostly gli moral in it nor suspected as yet that any lapse of or time or change of fortune could bring round a day when those precious securities whose value he had so lately reckoned up complacently to his wife might seem as intangible and as incapable of realization as the stately palaces groves and fountains of the ex manager of drury lane too many have cause to remember the closing months of 1664 1864 and the new now turn which affairs took in october reeve could talk from the first as well as others about I 1 the glut of new companies about the market being overdone about the panic which must set in by and by if the public did not behave more circumspectly about this compa nys nya shares going to a discount and that company being in a fair a forced winding up but with these tottering and shak shaky concerns he had luckily nothing to Z do all that he was interested te in were sound and conducted on good commercial principles chehad he had been in one or two that had proved unsound but then he had got out of them in ilmet and he congratulated himself accordingly on his hig sound judgment the worst of it was that when the pu publio lio llo once became suspicious they confounded the good with the bad and the former suffered for the fault oy of the latter thus lie he had resolved to sell his two hundred shores in the general dry goods insurance company which were at two pounds a share premium they were he knew worth more than that but a call eail was about to be made of flke five pounds a share and in prospect of other calls he thought he could not quite spare the money but on giving orders for the saie sale he found thattie that the call had sent th them e m down to par I 1 and th that athe he could barely get back his own money he decided therefore not lo 10 sell till they should recover and when instead of lot recovering he found that within two days more they had gone to two pounds I 1 a snare share discount he was quite nettled his mind was made up that nobody should hayo halo have havo his shares at a discount rhe the the publia would come to their s anses by Y and by and be glad to boy hoy loy at a premium meantime jie he pay the call and wait unluckily howe however veti the dry goods insurance directors were ere not singular in their need of money most of the ohp new companies which had been started about the same time were now making their first calls and reeve beeve having bought more than he ever intended to hold found that he must perforce sell something he sold therefore those which were best and held those which were just then not looking quite so well until they should hav have 0 time to come round a little but even on those which he sold ho he barely realized his own money so perversely sely selx stingy and ind incredulous had people become in pa particular reticular there was one concern the finance backof bank of westminster now he knew on the very best auth authority orif that the dividend which would be declared by this company at the end of the year would be twenty per cent per annum and yet he hd had to lethiot let iet hia his shares go at some little discount and was portion ably out of pocket by the transaction what did the public want if twenty per pen cent pent did not satisfy them what were we coming to at any arty rate he badnow had now sold enough of one thing or other to give him a reserve of three or four thousand pounds to work upon he would hold the he remainder of his ill investments and use this reserve to ps apay the calls would bide his time through through whatever bad weather might be ahead would wait till dividend time came round in the spring and then he knew weli well enough that prosperous balance sheets would send pend all up to hi higher her premiums in lums alums than evor dvor ever an aud and d ure ute he couii could realize happily and aga nga again n have peace of mind TO BE CONTINUED |