Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 9.pdf/81

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[January,

Love and Skates.

LOVE AND SKATES. IN TWO PARTS. PART I. were all honest and foolish but He, John Churm, honest and wise, was off the West, with his Herculean shoulders at the wheels of dead-locked railroad. These honest fellows did not wish Dunderbunk fail for several rea sons. First, was not pleasant lose

rectors

I.

one.

to

to

it

to

From

no

commissions, dividends, no salaries, —nothing, indeed, but abuse from the

of

a

of in

in of in

a

in

to

in

Inefficient Whiffler whimpered out his The confessions utive are sorry stuff

impotent

read.

exec Whiffler's

long, dismal complaint shall not re peated. prosperous con He had taken cern, had carried things his own

which nobody wanted arrears his hands.

He

buy. He was He had tried

to

it

worked

raw material lavishly, and badly into half-ripe material,

to

had bought

in

be

to

of

to

is

of

picked.

It

lit

story.

way, and now failure was inevitable.

Di

a

its

pomp

stockholders, and the reputation thieves. say, five That the ten are pick pockets; the other five, pockets happened that the Dunderbunk

to

go

If

his pompous manner, with tle collapsed, pro tempore.

to

all

a

no

its

in

ish: five wise, who bag the Company's funds salaries and commissions for in paper; five foolish, who get dorsing

“State the case, Mr. Superintendent Whiffler,” said President Brummage,

be

Di

Board ten rectors, five are wise and five are fool

was the ques

avoid this disaster?—that tion.

in

Dun

toga was torn, and might presently rags beyond repair. The first rent would inaugurate universal rupture. How

an

the

of

of

of

proud

Dunderbunk"failed, the

a

to

If

derbunk Foundry. Now, not seldom,

advertise

which his name

of

America were not.

go

the whole file. There were ten Directors

ments boards figured.

ly

the tenth

Everybody and everything was ready fail. the hindmost brick went, down would

walked down town toga made the newspaper

on

if

it in on

all

so

of

of

vanish

on

in

all

the green inch-worms every June, the tenth that June the money had buried itself and was as

As

the first

lend his

every new enter them might have long patchwork

name and take stock Any one prise.

of

a

as

a

ed

sud

and primed for destruction, had denly sailed upon Credit.

Each was

Wall-Street fashion, invited

of

or

and sunshine had fled from Wall Street. puff Noisy Crisis towing black Panic, ing steam-tug drags three-decker cock

be

many companies.

Brum

President

these gentlemen was picked great

to

Well they might be forlorn It was the rosy summer solstice, the longest and fairest day of the year. But rose-col

of

mage down, each one the pockets

all

the green table, forlorn as the guests at a Barmecide feast.

to

reputations?

in

be

Third, danger. investment would what would become of their Directorial

to

President Brummage forthwith convoked his Directors. And here they sat around

Second, one impor their investment. tant failure might betray Credit Crisis heels, whereupon every with Panic its

CONSTERNATION | Consternation in the back office of Benjamin Brummage, Esq., banker in Wall Street. Yesterday down came Mr. Superintend ent Whiffler, from Dunderbunk, up the North River, to say, that, “unless some thing be done, at once, the Dunderbunk Foundry and Iron-Works must wind up.”

a

at

A KNOT AND A MAN TO CUT IT.

at

CHAPTER