“Do you sell on credit?” asked the old man, significantly.
“Well, then, my boy, take an old man’s advice, and don’t count your chickens before they are hatched; don’t live on ten thousand a year when that sum exists only in your ledger. Call in your debts, and when your customers have _paid_, then tell me how _much_ you have _gained_.”
“My dear uncle, you are quite obsolete in your notions. I wish I could induce you to enter with me into a new scheme; it would make your fortune.”
“I am content with my present condition, Charles; my salary of eight hundred a year is quite sufficient for the wants of a bachelor, and leaves me a little for the wants of others; nor would I sacrifice my peace of mind and quiet of conscience for all the fortunes that will ever be made by speculation.”
“It is not necessary to sacrifice either peace or principle in making a fortune, uncle.”
“You have not seen the end yet, my dear boy; I have lived long enough to behold several kinds of _speculative mania_, and all terminated in a similarly unfortunate manner. It is a spirit of gambling which is abroad, and I am old-fashioned enough to believe that money thus obtained never does good to any one. It is like the price of a soul: the devil is sure to cheat the unhappy bargainer.”
“How I hate to hear people talk about business,” lisped Mrs. Waterton, as she sat listlessly in her loose wrapping-gown at the breakfast table; “I think no one ought to mention the word before ladies.”
The old man looked at her with ill-disguised contempt.
“It will be well for you, young lady,” said he, “if you never have to learn the necessity of a knowledge of business.”
Laura put up her pretty lip, but was silent, for she was much too indolent, and rather too well bred, to get angry.
Charles Waterton had given his uncle what he believed to be an accurate view of his circumstances. Excited beyond the bounds of sober sense by his seeming success, he was as sanguine a dupe as ever bled beneath the leech-craft of speculation. His real estate, which he _very moderately_ estimated at _quintuple_ its cost, formed, _at such prices_, an immense fortune. His book debts were enormous, for his money was scattered east, west, north and south, and in consequence of giving long credits, he was enabled to obtain exorbitant profits. But the Eldorado whose boundaries seemed so accurately defined on paper, became exceedingly indistinct as he fancied himself about to approach its shores. The following year began to afford tokens of coming trouble. Credit was still good, but money had entirely disappeared from the community, and men who had learned to make notes in order to _acquire fortunes_, were now obliged to continue their manufacture in order to _avoid ruin_. Rumors of approaching distress arose in the money market; men began to look with distrust upon their fellows, and as unlimited confidence in each other had been the foundation of the towering edifice of unstable prosperity, the moment that was shaken, the whole structure fell crumbling to the earth. As soon as doubt arose, destruction was at hand, and at length one wild crash of almost universal bankruptcy startled the dreamers from their golden visions.