CHAPTER XIX.

MAKING A FORTUNE


Kidd Company stock was a feature in Wall street. The firm of Topman and
Gusher, having luminated the great Kidd Discovery Company, had got it
fairly on its feet in that mart of the money-changers. The firm was
considered highly respectable now, and had counting-rooms in Pearl
street, near Wall, second floor, furnished in a style of elegance it
would be difficult to surpass, even at this day. If you would fortify
the standing of a great and enterprising firm, Topman said, in his
polite way, you must do it with elegant and elaborate furniture in your
counting-room. Show is the thing two-thirds of the people in the world
are attracted and deluded by.

The newspapers, too, were telling curious stories as to how Kidd's
treasure was discovered, and also making statements of a very unreliable
nature, setting forth that already several million dollars had been
recovered, and that any man engaged in it would surely make a fortune
for his heirs, no matter how numerous. The more unreasonable these
statements were, the more readily did people invest in the stock. Not a
solid man in Wall street had heard of the firm of Topman and Gusher
eight months ago. The great beacon lights of the street now condescended
to bow and shake hands with Topman, to take more than a glance at the
firm's name when it was brought to their notice on certain bits of paper
which the enterprising firm, for mere convenience sake, gave now and
then as "equivalents". In short, Mr. Topman was a man of such
impressive manners that he quite captivated Wall street, and to have