The friends of Bubble kept their town-houses
and their country-houses, drove their
carriages, feasted on delicacies, and clad
themselves in splendid waistcoats, out of
these preliminary expenses, derived from
schemes not worth a rush, and yet
euphoniously described as proper expenses.

"Oh! " continued Bubble, " the best names
in Doem were along with mine. All did
the same. Of course I knew things would
be so well managed that nobody would be
responsible. My name may be down for two
millions—what of that ? who cares?—there's
nothing like it. I scarcely knew on how
many committees my name was down. I
knew they were all right, and sure to return
the deposits, less the small sum for expenses.
Of course there could be no disgrace in it, when
it included some of the first men in the country.
We were all tarred with the same stick."

When Bubble soared to his culminating
point, he saw the whole Doem world at his
feet. Heroes who had served their fellows,
by sacrificing themselves, received but a small
and select homage compared with the noisy
plaudits and costly testimonials bestowed
on Bubble for making a colossal fortune in
a few years. He was celebrated by poetry,
painting and sculpture. Gracious powers!
how ugly his hard, mean, secretive face
looks in marble! He was a bad speaker,
and had nothing to say; but Demosthenes
never obtained more religious silence in
public meetings: his hearers believing him to
be somehow golden-mouthed, a veritable
Chrysostom. They seemed trying to
discover the secret of fortune-making in his bad
grammar.

The Reverend Doctor Surplice always said
grace wherever Bubble fed, and Sir Nathaniel
Doington, the pious baronet, always quoted
in Parliament the opinion of his friend—the
great capitalist—on the utility of tracts for
navvies who could not read.

The caricaturist's shop is sometimes the
temple of truth in grotesque. There are
epochs in which truth is to be seen nowhere,
not even at the bottoms of wells, except in
caricatures. This was the case during the
Bubble-mania. The caricature of the
armorial bearings of the Bubble family was the
shadow going before the public reprobation
which at last overtook Bubble. I do not
know whether the drawing of it was finally
brought home to the sparkling wit who
rivalled the sparkling wines at the dinner-table
of Mr. Bubble; or to the tall, dashing
silent lady with observing black eyes, who
generally graced the evening parties of Mrs.
Bubble. The heraldry in it was too
commercial for ordinary appreciation. The
Bubble business was symbolised in the
Bubble arms by Stock Exchange emblems.
The crest was a bull's head; gulls, ducks,
and bears covered the quarterings of the
shield; and a stag and a doe rampant were
the supporters.

Bubble and his friends gave general
currency to the word investment. The axiom
that the straight line is the shortest did not
serve their turn so well, in regard to railways,
as did moral truths and truisms,
enforcing economy and investment. The
savage is the reckless, the civilised is the
saving man. The man skating without heeding
the thaw, is not more sure of falling into
the water than the man spending all he earns
is sure of falling into want. The Bubble
perversion of the frugal axioms, consisted in
preaching the duty of investing in their
schemes: in trafficking, like many others, in
light from Heaven, and using it to lead men
astray. The chief end of man, according
to the Bubble catechism, is to invest.
According to the Bubble philosophy the
moral man is the man who invests, and
the immoral man is the man who does
not invest. The good father is the
investing father, and the good husband is the
investing husband. And many worthy men
were caught by their doctrines, and found
soul-ease in applying them. Brave men
toiled hard and saved hard, and smelted gold
out of their muscles and their brains, which
they invested with the Bubble brotherhood.
Shrewd men were the dupes of Bubble. He
had victims among men far too sagacious to
invest their savings in nothings. Prudently
investing their savings in Joint Stock
Companies which yielded real profits, they
became sleeping-partners in concerns with
equally real risks. When the risks came
into play they found themselves engaged in
businesses which they did not understand,
and which they found were decidedly hazardous.
They were sleeping-partners with hideous
nightmares and dreadful awakenings.
Many bought shares which they could not
sell, and made themselves liable for calls they
could not answer. Many sincerely wished
they had found investing nothing worse than
losing their money, or anything half so agreeable
as making ducks and drakes with their
savings on the sea. Investing they found
was giving a thousand pounds to Bubble, and
giving him also the right to threaten them
with legal proceedings if they did not send
him nine thousand pounds more. They had
given him their savings and the power of
suing them for what they could not pay.
When, too late, the investors sought the
advice of men who understood the business in
which they were entangled, they were told
they had been infatuated individuals.

When the embarrassed heads of families
repeated in their domestic circles the opinions
of the competent judges, it was well if the
model fathers did not hear their nearest and
dearest, and their own hearts, calling them
"fools." They never knew the end of their
liabilities; and when they imagined "they
had washed their hands of them," they found
the companies could still "burn their fingers,"
Under their trials, many good and brave men