and there it was in big letters: 'The Rubber Bubble Burst!'
'Thorpe's Audacity Punished!' Those were the words.
I can see them with my eyes shut. I stood there,
looking at the fellow, and I suppose there was something
in the way I looked, for he stopped too.

Of course, he didn't know me from Adam, but all the same,
I'm damned if he didn't wink his eye at me--as if we two
had a joke between us. And at that I burst out laughing--I
simply roared with laughter, like a boy at a pantomime--and
I took that last half-crown out of my pocket, and I gave
it to the sandwich-man. God! you should have seen his face."

"I don't particularly mind, Joel," said his sister,
"but I never heard you swear so much before."

"Oh, what the--what the deuce!" he protested, impatiently.
"Don't interrupt me now! Well, I went on down the street.
The members of the Stock Exchange were coming out of
'the house,' and making up little groups on the pavement.
They do business inside, you know, until closing
time--this day it happened to be four o'clock--and then
they come out and deal in the street with one another,
with the kerb-stone mob, who are not allowed inside,
standing round to watch the thing. I came along into the
thick of these fellows; they were yelling out all sorts
of things--'East Rands,' 'Oroyas,' 'Lake View Centrals,'
and what not, but these went in one ear and out the other.
If there ever was a man with no stomach for the market it
was me. But then someone roared out: