Life — October 4, 1883 — page 7: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

‘LIFE: VI. Ceur qui conscillent ne paient pas. PS, HE warmth with which Agnus was received at Ra- quemin, Shearum & Co.'s. was effu- sive. He had a good balance to his credit, was young, and want- ed to gamble. These are they beloved of bro- kers. Agnus now had really good “ points,” and of course his remaining transactions are easily described. He invested his fifty-five thousand dollars quietly, calmly, dispassionately, as margin in buying that solid investment stock Central Railroad of Alaska. The stock was gilt-edged. Families held it and ate of the fruits thereof. Trust funds sought it. A few leaves of this rich vine scattered through the contents of a loan-envelope would make even silver mining stocks good as collaterals. The bank president with the bushiest eyebrow (the bushiness of the president's eye- brows is always the measure of the bank’s solidity) never hesitated to pass it as good. The market price of this sample of securities, more than secure, was but $112 per share. It paid clock-work dividends of seven per cent. Agnus was safe. % Safe until ugly rumors spread, safe until large blocks of the stock were hurled upon the market by panic-stricken holders, safe until the grizzly. and the polar bear, and the black bear of Europe (with a strong Hebrew accent), and the Cinnamon-bear (with a_ perfumed handkerchief), and the cave-bear (fresh from 3 beer-tunnel) jumped upon it and tore the hol- low entrails of it. Safe until the Receiver unmerci- fully appointed to try to save the half-rotten ties and rusty rails on which its borrowed cars were running away with widows’ savings, cquld call a halt and by strenuous borrowing raise the’ value of the wrecked property.to a point where himself and the lawyers were justified in stealing the remains. Alas! poor Agnus Fatuus ! Where now is the dainty suite of apartments with easy access to the club? Where the unlimited ward- robe, the envy of rising dandies? Where the luxuri- ous evenings and the idle days? Gone! Fled forever by way of the Central Railroad of Alaska! Raquemin, Shearum & Co. themselves were crippled. They could not help him. Beside the city-houses, Newport villas, jewelry, lands, paintings and other trifles owned by their wives, both Raquemin and 163 Shearum were pauperized. The pair could hardly have raised half a million of dollars—unless the ven- ture offered were an exceptionally good: one. Fitz Asinus told him flatly that there was no use try- ing to help a man who carried an umbrella with a beastly wooden handle, All the correct men had ham- mered silver handles to their umbrellas. He wanted to do what was right, you know, but he had seen Ag- nus with the same scarf-pin now for a week, and if a man would set himself up as eccentric, how could any one help him? Silenus spoke to Agnus but once after the crash. It was in a street-car a month or two after the Central Railroad of Alaska had gone into the hands of a re- ceiver. What he said was—“ Can't you conductors ring your condemned bell-punches outside instead of springing the thing off in a passenger's ear?” That night the driver of Agnus’ car called him aside and threatened to “punch” him on the ground of “not dividing fair on his knocking-down,”” And this driver was’ ‘a red-nosed man, who smelled. of too recent onions and wore no cravat, Alas! poor Agnus ! The moral of his fate is not buried in the bottom of aweéll, It is not that kind of a story. The moral is that a sufficiently large credit’ balance, and acting on good “ points,” would bankrupt the Rothschild family before three o’clock p.m. Manat. NIHILIST SONG. WINKLE, twinkle, little Czar ; Now I wonder how you are! Up above the world you shy, Light with dynamite——Oh ! my ! As your flying sceptre’s spark Lights the prisoner from the dark Mines of cold Siberi4, Twinkle, twinkle, little Czar ! comicbooks.com