The Bondavara Joint-Stock Company was about to issue its prospectus; the speculation had been advertised largely, and now it only waited the necessary capital of ten millions to start the railway which was to put the finest coal-mines in the kingdom within the reach of the markets of the great cities. The speculation did not, however, attract the public. Who knows about the value of the mine? said one. Who believes what the papers say? We all know that trick. The gudgeons held off, and did not rise to the bait offered.

One day Felix Kaulmann brought one of the directors to see Ivan Behrend, and while these two were in conversation he noticed, lying on the table, a piece of coal from the Bondavara mine, upon which was distinctly visible the outline of a plant about the size of a finger.

"Is this the impression of an antediluvian bird's claw?" he asked.

"No," returned Ivan; "it is a petrified plant."

"Ah, I am making a collection of petrifactions."

"Then take that to add to it," said Ivan, carelessly.

Felix carried away the piece of coal in his pocket.

Shortly before the prospectus was issued there appeared in one of the best-known scientific journals an illustration and article descriptive of the petrified bird's foot which had been found in the Bondavara mine. The article was signed "Doctor Felicius."

All the savants were excited. "We must see this impression!" they cried.

The discoverer had given to the creature, whose foot-mark had remained unalterably impressed upon the tender (!) coal, the learned name of Protornithos lithanthracoides.

"Ho, ho!" exclaimed the united bodies of geologists, physiologists, professors, philosophers, artisans, and artesian-well borers, "that is indeed a long word!"

One set of learned men declared the thing to be possible, another denied its possibility.

And why was it not possible? Because at the period of coal-formations neither birds nor any one of the mammalia could exist, or did exist, in the bowels of the earth. There we find only traces of plants, of mussels, of fish sometimes.

And why is it credible? Because in these days we make discoveries every day. Humboldt declared that in the antediluvian world no apes had ever lived, for the reason that the fossil of an ape had never been found. Since then one fossil ape has been discovered in England, in France three of the Ourang species.

By degrees the strife raged in every newspaper; it was taken up in English, French, German, and American publications. At last it was proposed that the matter should be referred to a commission of five well-known professors, to whom the petrifaction should be submitted, and who should decide the question in dispute. Doctor Felicius offered one thousand ducats to the one who would prove that his bird's claw was not a bird's claw.

The tribunal of the five learned judges examined the petrifaction with microscopical attention, and after a long sitting brought in a unanimous verdict that the impression was not made by the claw of a Protornithos, but was that of a leaf belonging to the plant Annularia longefolia; in fact, there could be no question of the bird species, as the specimen of coal produced was not brown coal, but the purest black, in which coal formation it was not possible for even a bird to exist.

Doctor Felix Kaulmann quietly paid the thousand ducats, and thanked the whole republic of professors for the service they had rendered to the Bondavara coal; such an advertisement could not have been obtained at an expense of forty thousand ducats. Let people say that the Protornithos was a humbug—who cares? The reputation of the Bondavara coal was firmly established on the best scientific grounds.

The period had now arrived when the undertaking should be floated at the exchange. This, perhaps, is the greatest science on earth. The stock-exchange has its good and its bad days. Sometimes it is full of electricity, the sheep frolic in the meadow; at other times they hang their heads and will not touch the beautiful grass. Sometimes they come bleating to the shepherd to beg that he will shear them, for their wool presses too heavily on them; another day they butt their heads together and will not listen to their leader. Again, and no one can tell why, when the bell-wether begins to run, all the rest of the flock run after him; neither the shepherd nor his dog can stop them. The science lies in knowing when there is good weather on the stock-exchange. On a favorable day men are in such excellent humor—there is so much gold in every pocket, everything goes well—that even a company for the excavation and alienation of the icebergs would find bidders. On a bad day the best and safest speculation would get not a single offer.

It was on one of the good days that the Bondavara Coal Company made its dÉbut at the Vienna Stock-exchange. It caught on, and by the day on which the subscriptions should be paid into the Bank of Kaulmann came round it was necessary to have a military cordon drawn across the street, to allow the stream of people to pass through in any sort of order. The subscribers had, in fact, collected before the doors early in the morning; those who were strong trusted to their own strength to make way for themselves by elbow force. In the crush battered hats and torn coats were matters of small consequence; verbal insults and personal injuries, such as pushing and squeezing, were treated as nothing. The windows of the bank which looked on the street were burst open, and some excited individual called out:

"I subscribe ten thousand, a hundred thousand, a million!"

When at last six o'clock struck, and the doors of the bank were closed, a stentorian voice called from the balcony to the crowd below:

"The subscription is closed!"

What a disappointment for those who had not been able to get their money in in time! They went away dejected men.

The Bondavara mine had indeed "caught on." Instead of ten millions, eight hundred and twenty thousand millions had been subscribed. Did the subscribers really possess all that money? Certainly not. Each one deposited the tenth portion of the sum subscribed as a guarantee, and this only on paper; actual money the company did not as yet touch. Those who made part of the vast crowd, who tore the coats from one another's backs, were not blessed with a superfluity of money, neither had they the slightest interest in the production of coal, but to-day it is fine weather on the exchange; the Bondavara Company's bonds stand at par. Every one wanted to make this small profit; that done they care no more for the bonds or the company.

It is, however, a fact that trees do not grow in heaven. Prince Waldemar was at the head of the countermine, and he was one of the cleverest, most astute men "on 'change."

To understand the business the reader should be himself a speculator. It is carried on something after this fashion. Those who want to buy in are oftentimes men of straw; they merely want shares to sell them at once to the first bidder. As a natural consequence, this lowers the value; there is a fall, sometimes a total collapse. If the investment is a sound one it recovers vitality, and the shares go up again. There is, however, a way to guard against this trick. Almost every company has a syndicate, whose office is to ascertain whether the applicants for shares are men of straw or not. Pending the inquiry, the time is made use of to employ certain agents, to whom a free gift is made of, say, five hundred shares. These men immediately set up a tremendous uproar; they drive up the shares, they tear the certificates out of one another's hands, screaming out the high rate at which they are buying. But the general market sees no shares pass; the experienced ones know that this is all a well-acted farce, and that any one who has ready-money need only go to the fountain-head and buy as many shares as he wants at par. On the other hand, the bears are waiting their time to rush in and cause such a depreciation as will run down the shares to almost nothing. When they have got them at this low figure they may allow them to rise again.

The only one who loses in this cruel game is the small capitalist, who has ventured, poor soul, on ice, and who has sacrificed his little all at the shrine of the golden calf, taken his carefully hoarded store, his hard-earned salary out of his drawer, and has cast it upon these unprofitable waters, tempted by the tales of high interest, and the like. All of a sudden the bears have rushed in, the mine has exploded, his hopes are blown into air, vanished like a dream; his shares are so much waste-paper. He goes home certainly a sadder if not a wiser man. Well for him if he is not a beggar. This is how they manage matters on the stock-exchange.