ness, when he would be struck dumb with astonish-
ment at the reckiess whirlpool of business that sur-
rounded him. He would see the shop-keeper sweep
with his arm into a bag silver coin stacked upon his
counter in payment for goods, as not worth the count-
ing ; he would see screaming auctioneers crying off
goods to whittling, tobacco-juice-spirting bidders,
who between jokes would buy whole cargoes, ship
and all with terrible sano- froid.
Thus the city-builders carried their work forward in wild irregular spasms but ever onward, unceasingly unhesitatingly. Often the arrival of a vessel, the completion of a wharf, or some such excuse would double the price of property within a few days.
Again and again one wonders how it is that so many of the shrewd and enterprising so soon became bankrupt. With such foresight, such practical com- mon sense, uniting energy, and golden opportunities, all as it would seem wisely applied and earnestly em- braced, it was pitiful to see them later, all there were left of them, or well-nigh all, wandering the streets that they had made, by houses they had built but now no longer theirs, moving silently and sadly over long-familiar ground, yet amidst scenes strange to them though fruits of their own untiring energy — wanderino; thus alone unrecognized skeletons of their former selves, while a new generation of millionaires flaunted its wealth in their faces. It was sad to see their wrecked hopes reconstructed by men of lesser worth, whose proud argosies bore heavily upon their slender craft ; to see the commerce of a great metropo- lis, once their own, ruled by upstart speculators ; to see their sand-hill home, with its acres of garden and barn-yard, become thick with magnificent mansions, whose lords were lucky gamblers, whose parvenu mis- tresses flouted and overshadowed their humble wives, while they themselves plodded quietly through their declining years, happy indeed if wife, and children, and food, and shelter, might be left to them.
