Young
Australia sees a chance of making thousands in a week; buys one
thousand shares at four shillings--only two hundred pounds; shares
will rise and Young Australia hopefully looks forward to pocketing
two or three thousand by his modest venture of two hundred; company
floated, shares rising slowly. Young Australia will not sell at a
profit, still dazzled by his chimerical thousands. Calls must be
made to put up machinery; shares have a downward tendency. Never
mind, there will only be one or two calls, so stick to shares as
parents of possible thousands. Machinery erected; now crushing; two
or three ounces to ton a certainty. Shares have an upward tendency;
washing up takes place--two pennyweights to ton. Despair! Shares run
down to nothing, and Young Australia sees his thousands disappear
like snow in the sun. The Great Humbug Reef proves itself worthy of
its name, and the company collapses amid the groans of confiding
public and secret joy of influential men, who have sold at the top
price.
Vandeloup knew all about this sort of thing, for he had seen it
occur over and over again in Ballarat and Melbourne. So many came to
the web and never got out alive, yet fresh flies were always to be
found. Vandeloup was of a speculative nature himself, and had he
been possessed of any surplus cash would, no doubt, have risked it
in the jugglery of the share market, but as he had none to spare he
stood back and amused himself with looking at the 'spider and the
fly' business which was constantly going on.
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