generally, "They're talkin' of rebuildin' Wimblehurst all over again,
I'm told. Anybody heard anything of it? Going to make it a reg'lar
smartgoin', enterprisin' place--kind of Crystal Pallas."

"Earthquake and a pestilence before you get that," my uncle would
mutter, to the infinite delight of every one, and add something
inaudible about "Cold Mutton Fat."...

III

We were torn apart by a financial accident to my uncle of which I did
not at first grasp the full bearings. He had developed what I regarded
as an innocent intellectual recreation which he called stock-market
meteorology. I think he got the idea from one use of curves in the
graphic presentation of associated variations that he saw me plotting.
He secured some of my squared paper and, having cast about for a time,
decided to trace the rise and fall of certain lines and railways.
"There's something in this, George," he said, and I little dreamt that
among other things that were in it, was the whole of his spare money and
most of what my mother had left to him in trust for me.

"It's as plain as can be," he said. "See, here's one system of waves and
here's another! These are prices for Union Pacifics--extending over a
month. Now next week, mark my words, they'll be down one whole point.
We're getting near the steep part of the curve again. See? It's
absolutely scientific. It's verifiable. Well, and apply it! You buy in
the hollow and sell on the crest, and there you are!"

I was so convinced of the triviality of this amusement that to find at
last that he had taken it in the most disastrous earnest overwhelmed me.