capital to any amount, provided always that he shared the result of
the circulation, they said. It was clear to me that the house of
Duncan, Sherman & Co. was not fast in the discount line. I then
looked in at Drew & Robinson's. Thinking I had come to buy
steamboats, a little, shriveled up old man led the way into a dark
back office, saying he could give me but five minutes to make known
my business. Anxious to facilitate matters, I produced the note,
saying that he of course knew the signer by reputation, and would
like to discount it out of compliment to him. A sight at the name,
and it seemed as if he was about looking the glasses out of his
spectacles. Then he went straight into a passion, ordering me to
leave the premises or he would call a policeman. Not to swerve from
the truth, I may say here, that I thought it very fortunate in
getting into the Street without being kicked there. All Wall Street,
it seemed to me, was in a state of anxiety. Every man looked as if
he were besieged by his neighbor, or had had a breach made in him by
some sudden revolution, and was in search of a physician to save his
bleeding bowels. Here and there I met a man looking as if he had
just rushed into the street to proclaim the baseness and treachery
of a newly discovered foe, who, with a thousand anxious thoughts,
had carried away the last remnant of his fortune.

"I found I had been laboring under a political delusion. Indeed, I
felt like one in a desert without means of alleviating his misery,
and turned to make my way out of Wall Street and declare myself its
eternal enemy, so ungrateful was the reception it had given me. And
as I was proceeding through the mass of rapidly moving figures that
surged along the sidewalk, my eye caught the sign of Van Vlete,
Read, & Drexel. The name struck me as being consonant with
generosity, so I looked in, and was accosted by a tall, lean man,