Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/273

Rh was that nobody had happened to look things squarely in the face. An occasional shrewd old Yankee felt it was due his traditional sagacity to inquire how long it was going to last.

"Last," they cried, astonished; "why we're just getting into our normal stride. The outside world is just beginning to realize what there is here."

"Well, it certainly is wonderful," the Yankee would hasten to say. But that was not sufficient.

"Wonderful?" they repeated. "I don't think so. Why do you call it wonderful? The only wonderful thing is that it's taken so long for the world to find us out." Every man carried a long checkbook that stuck out of his breast pocket. One of the favourite gestures of emphasis was to flap this checkbook impressively against the leg or the palm of the hand. A large benign dignity informed the intercourse of the new millionaires.

All this had its effect on those who at first had taken the business too seriously. Owners of tracts began to go crazy and to believe in their own projects. They turned back their money into building huge hotels that could never be filled, casinos, hot springs resorts, any number of gim-cracks to catch the tourist trade. In many instances they borrowed on the money still due them. It will be remembered that most sales were made at a quarter or a third down. There was plenty of money in the banks: just as there was plenty of money—not wealth—everywhere. The oldtimers borrowed it, too, on the security of their lands; and bought town lots because they did not want these strangers to get all the bacon.

There were still some few sane ones, and some partially sane. Fortunately for California many of the former class were in the banks. The semi-sane were business men, conservatives—in the East—who had sense enough to see that this condition could not last forever, but who thought they could guess to a gnat's hair just when the top would be reached. In the meantime they were going to cash in. These wise persons did not stand on the street corners with their thumbs in their armholes: they sat about little tables in the backs of barrooms, and talked in low tones. Most of their talk was in giving reasons to one another