One of the penalties of success (according to the successful) being the malignant envy of those who have not succeeded, it is not surprising that in time there began to creep into Wall Street some stories that E. & W. was no better than it should be, nor even quite so good, and that there was no reason why the stock should be so high when solider securities were selling below par.

The management, assisted by the entire E. & W. clique, laughed all such “bear” stories to scorn, and when scorn seemed somewhat insufficient they greatly increased the volume of sales and maintained the price by the familiar, simple, but generally successful expedient of buying from one another through many different brokers in the stock-market. The bear party rallied within a day or two, and returned to the charge with an entirely new set of lies, besides an accidental truth or two; but the E. & W. clique was something of a liar itself, and arranged for simultaneous delivery, at different points on the street, of a lot of stories so full of new mineral developments on the line of the road, and so many new evidences of the management’s shrewdness, that criticism was silenced for a while.

But bears must live as well as bulls, and the longer they remain hungry the harder they are sure to fight for their prey: so the street was soon favored with a fresh assortment of rumors. This time they concerned themselves principally with the alleged bad condition of the track and rolling stock in the West, and with doubts as to the mineral deposits said to have been discovered. The market was reminded that other railroad companies, by scores, had made all sorts of brilliant discoveries and announcements that had failed to materialize, and that some of these roads had been managed by hands that now seemed to be controlling E. & W.

Then the E. & W. management lost its ordinary temper and accused the bears of malignant falsehood. There was nothing unusual in this, in a locality where no one is ever suspected of telling the truth while he can make anything by lying. When, however, E. & W. issued invitations to large operators, particularly in the company’s stock, for a special excursion over the road, with opportunities for thorough investigation, the bears growled sullenly and began to look for a living elsewhere.

The excursion-start was a grand success in the eyes of Mr. Marge, who made with it his first trip in the capacity of an investigating investor. There were men on the train to whom Marge had in other days scarcely dared to lift his eyes in Wall Street, yet now they treated him as an equal, not only socially but financially. He saw his own name in newspapers of cities through which the party passed; his name had appeared in print before, but only among lists of guests at parties, or as usher or a bridegroom’s best man at a wedding,—not as a financier. It was gratifying, too, to have presented to him some presidents of Western banks who joined the party, and be named to these financiers as one of the most prominent investors in E. & W.

He saw more, too, of his own country than ever before; his eyes and wits were quick enough to make him enter heartily into the spirit of a new enterprise or two which some of the E. & W. directors with the party were projecting. It might retard a little his accumulation of E. & W. stock, but the difference would be in his favor in the end. To “get in on the ground-floor” of some great enterprise had been his darling idea for years; he had hoped for it as unwearyingly as for a rich wife; now at last his desire was to be granted: the rich wife would be easy enough to find after he himself became rich. Unaccustomed though he was to slumbering with a jolting bed under him, his dreams in the sleeping-car were rosier than any he had known since the hair began to grow thin on the top of his head.

But as the party began to look through the car windows for the bears of the Rocky Mountains, the bears of Wall Street began to indulge in pernicious activity. They all attacked E. & W. with entirely new lots of stories, which were not denied rapidly enough for the good of the stock, for some of the more active managers of the E. & W. clique were more than a thousand miles away. Dispatches began to hurry Westward for new and bracing information, but the whole excursion-party had taken stages, a few hours before, for a three days’ trip to see some of the rich mining-camps to which E. & W. had promised to build a branch. No answers being received, E. & W. began to droop; as soon as it showed decided signs of weakness, and seemed to have no friends strong enough to support it, the bears sprang upon it en masse and proceeded to pound and scratch the life out of it. It was granted a temporary breathing-spell through the assistance of some operators in other stocks, who feared their own properties might be depressed by sympathy, but as soon as it became evident that E. & W. was to be the only sufferer all the bulls in the market sheathed their horns in bears’ claws and assisted in the annihilation of the prostrate giant who had no friends.

The excursion-party returned from the mines in high spirits: even the president of the company declared he had no idea that the property was so rich. He predicted, and called all present to remember his words, that the information he would send East would “boom” E. & W. at least ten points within ten days. Marge’s heart simply danced within him: if it was to be as the president predicted, his own hoped-for million by the beginning of the stagnant season would be nearer two. He smiled pityingly as Lucia’s face rose before him: how strange that he had ever thought seriously of making that chit his wife, and being gratified for such dowry as the iron trade might allow her father to give!

The stages stopped at a mining-village, twenty miles from the station, for dinner. The president said to the keeper of the little hotel,—

“Is there any telegraph-station here?”

“There’s a telephone ’cross the road at the store,” said the proprietor. “It runs into the bankin’-house at Big Stony.”

“Big Stony?” echoed the president. “Why, we’ve done some business with that bank. Come, gentlemen, let’s go across and find out how our baby is being taken care of.”

Several of the party went, Marge being among them. The president “rang up” the little bank, and bawled,—

“Got any New York quotations to-day?”

“Yes,” replied a thin, far-away voice.

“How’s the stock market?”

“Pretty comfortable, considering.”

“Any figures on E. & W.?”

“El,” was the only sound the president could evolve from the noise that followed.

“Umph!” said he; “what does that mean? ‘El’ must be ‘twelve,’—hundred and twelve. Still rising, you see; though why it should have gone so high and so suddenly I don’t exactly see. Hello,” he resumed, as he turned again to the mouth-piece; “will you give me those figures again, and not quite so loud? I can’t make them out.”

Again the message came, but it did not seem any more satisfactory, for the president looked astonished, and then frowned; then he shouted back,—

“There’s some mistake; you didn’t get the right letters: I said E. & W.,—Eastern and Western. One moment. Mr. Marge, won’t you kindly take my place? My hearing isn’t very keen.”

Marge placed the receiver to his ear, and shouted, “All right; go ahead.” In two or three seconds he dropped the receiver, turned pale, and looked as if about to fall.

“What is it?” asked several voices in chorus.

“He said, ‘E. & W. is dead as a smelt; knocked to pieces two days ago.’”

“What is it quoted at now?” asked one, quickly.

True enough: who could want to know more than Marge? It was in a feeble voice, though, and after two or three attempts to clear his throat, that he asked,—

“How did it close to-day?”

Again, as the answer came back, Marge dropped the receiver and acted as if about to fall.

“What is it? Speak, can’t you?”

“Thirty-seven!” whispered Marge.

There was an outburst of angry exclamations, not unmixed with profanity. Then nearly all present looked at the president inquiringly, but without receiving any attempt at an explanation, for the president was far the heaviest owner of E. & W. stock, and he looked as stony of face as if he had suddenly died but neglected to close his eyes.

Marge hastily sought the outer air; it seemed to him he would lose his reason if he did not get away from that awful telephone. Thirty-seven! he knew what that meant; his margin might have saved his own stock had the drop been to a little below par, but it had tumbled more than half a hundred points, so of course his brokers had closed the account when the margin was exhausted, and Marge, who a fortnight before had counted himself worth nearly a million dollars (Wall Street millions), was now simply without a penny to his credit in Wall Street or anywhere else; what money he chanced to have in his pocket was all he could hope to call his own until the first of the next month, when the occupants of his tenement-houses would pay their rent.

It was awful; it was unendurable; he longed to scream, to rave, to tear his hair. He mentally cursed the bears, the brokers, the directors, and every one else but himself. He heard some of his companions in the store bawling messages through the telephone, to be wired to New York; these were veterans, who assumed from past experience that a partial recovery would follow and that they would partly recoup their losses. But what could he do? There was not on earth a person whom he could ask, by telegraph, for the few hundred dollars necessary to a small speculation on the ruins.

He heard the outburst of incredulity, followed by rage, as the passengers who had remained at the little hotel received the unexpected news, which now seemed to him to be days old. Then he began to suspect everybody, even the crushed president and directors. What could be easier, Marge said to himself, than for these shrewd fellows to unload quietly before they left New York, and then get out of reach so that they could not render any support in case of a break? He had heard of such things before. It certainly was suspicious that the crash should have come the very day after they got away from the telegraph-wires. Likely enough they now, through their brokers, were quietly buying up all the stock that was being offered, to “peg it up,” little by little, to where it had been. The mere suspicion made him want to tear them limb from limb,—to organize a lynching-party, after the fashion of the Territory they were in, and get revenge, if not justice.

It was rather a dismal party that returned to New York from the trip over the E. & W. The president, fearing indignant Western investors, and still more the newspaper reporters, whom he knew would lie in wait for him until they found him, quietly abandoned the train before reaching Chicago, and went Eastward by some other route. A few of the more hardened operators began to encourage each other by telling of other breaks that had been the making of the men they first ruined, but they dropped their consoling reminiscences when Marge approached them; they had only contempt for a man who from his manner evidently was so completely “cleaned out” as to be unable to start again, even in a small way. The majority, however, seemed as badly off as himself; some of them were so depressed that when the stock of cigars provided specially for the excursion was exhausted they actually bought common pipes and tobacco at a way station, and industriously poisoned the innocent air for hundreds of miles.

This, then, was the end of Marge’s dream of wealth! Occasionally, in other days, he had lost small sums in Wall Street, but only he and his broker knew of it; no one ever knew in what line of stock he operated. But now—why, had not his name been printed again and again among those of E. & W.’s strongest backers? Every one would know of his misfortune: he could no longer pose as a shrewd young financier, much less as a man with as large an income as he had time to enjoy.

Would that he had not been so conceited and careless as to mentally give up Lucia, who now, for some reason, persisted in appearing in his mind’s eye! Had he given half as much attention to her as to E. & W., she might now be his, and their wedding-cards might be out. And iron was still looking up, too! How could any one not a lunatic have become so devoted to chance as to throw away a certainty? for she had been a certainty for him, he believed, had he chosen to realize. Alas! with her, as with E. & W., he had been too slow at realizing.