skimmings are ordered to be collected in casks,
and returned into store for the benefit of the
crown"!

ON SPEC.

ONE day last Midsummer twelvemonth, I,
sitting in Melbourne, sighed over the commercial
column of the Argus. Most things were to be
had in large quantity below cost price; the
sacrifices being genuine they really were alarming.
Then I struck on the paragraph that follows:

"The engineer of the Bendigo Waterworks
has reported favourably of the progress of the
works, and that gold has been struck whilst
making some excavations in the Golden-square
reservoir reserve. In consequence of which the
shares of the company have risen to four
pounds." (Their first cost was two pounds.)

A fortnight before, only want of money had
prevented me from speculating in those waterworks.
A friend and shareholder who presently
looked in upon me said that people about town
were astonished, and that holders who preferred
a bird in the hand were realising as fast as they
could at five or six pounds a share. Unfortunate
me! All my money was sunk in a team
of horses then upon the road, though two
days overdue in Melbourne! At any rate I
could go and witness the excitement of others;
so I went out, and saw brokers and merchants,
clerks and land speculators and auction jobbers,
Jew and Gentile, warmly discussing waterworks
one with another. There was great stir at the
offices of stock and share brokers. As the day
advanced, the excitement began to pervade all
our streets, and when friends met, instead of
asking one another how they did, they said,
"Any Bendigo Waterworks?"

I looked in at the Diggers' Bank and Stock
and Share Exchange. The bland proprietor
smiled pleasantly at an excitement very
profitable to himself. Nervous people faintly
inquired how Bendigo Waterworks were selling;
jaunty people, who affected to regard the whole
stir as a joke, playfully asked quotations, and
were told that there were no quotations, but that
a few shares were on the books at seven pounds
ten. I went home bitten with the mania, and
met on the way a friend, who placed in my hand
a transfer slip for some shares he had purchased
at five pounds on joint account. That was well;
for upon those shares profit could be made
immediately.

But my team had not come in. A jingle and
tramp that evening caused me to rush out into
my yard, only to see the arrival of my neighbour's
team from Adelong. It had made a
journey in mid-winter of three hundred and
sixty miles, over unfrequented ground, in five
weeks to and fro. My neighbour had taken up
three and a half tons of crushing machinery,
carrying also hard food for his horses, and had
no shelter but the skeleton shelter of his own
waggon or shelter of winter trees, by night or
day, upon the road. The road was not road but
only wheel track for some part of the way; he
went alone, too, and he had never been that way
before. Thirty-five pounds per ton was the
price that tempted him to do what other dragmen
had refused. He was a kindly old man-of-
war's man, heedless of danger. I was glad to
see him well back, and we supped together.
What a glorious thing it was for him to come
home with money in his pocket just in time to
buy " Bendigo Waterworks" and make his
fortune at a stroke!

I went to bed, and dreamed of waterworks all
night. Next day, chafed at the absence of the
team, I went to bed again, and dreamed of
waterworks. I woke to chafe again, all through a
Sunday, for was I not losing a fortune by the
delay? The next day was Monday. Waterworks
shares went up to nine pounds. Many
men realised at nine pounds; many preferred
waiting until the shares should get up to five
hundred. Others were sensible and practical.
They would sell, they said, at a hundred. Didn't
we remember how the Argus Flat Company's
shares went up from ten to one hundred and
sixty? On the other hand, there were men
selling all they had, that they might lay up treasure
in Bendigo, and every original shareholder
rose one thousand per cent. in the estimation of
his business friends. What an acute man he had
shown himself to be! There was forethought!
There was prudence! Look at him! He bought
his shares at two pounds.

It was weary work for me to " wait for the
waggon." But who is this who at two P.M.
walks into my office with a stolid face and takes
his pipe out of his mouth to speak to me? It
is Jos, my waggoner. His horses had been
stolen on the return journey. He had tracked
them for three days before he came upon them
in a copse. Where is the money he brings?
Without stopping to ask questions; without half
an hour's delay; before the Waterworks can rise
another shilling, I run out and spend all in
shares at nine pounds each.

Since the English railway mania of 'forty-
eight, there never had been anything like it.
During the next week, these shares rose to
sixteen pounds ten, cash, and twenty pounds at
three months.

On a Saturday night, therefore, I said to
myself, "If all go well, I will sell on Monday."
It was likely, I thought, that twenty pounds
would be a climax, and I spent Sunday in dread
of a too sudden reaction.

On Monday there was a reprint in the
Melbourne daily papers, of an article from the
Bendigo Mercury calling us all lunatics. It showed
that whatever gold there might be in the Golden
square Reservoir, would be required to pay for
finishing the works of the Company, which,
calculating on that chance of gold, had raised but
sixty thousand pounds of capital to pay a
hundred thousand pounds of expenses. Furthermore,
four hundred shares, unallotted, were advertised
to be tendered for. Large speculators did all
they could, in their own clever way, to keep
the market up; but shares dropped suddenly