But after all it did not immediately look like a disaster, though unquestionably it was one I hesitated, calculated the chances, and then concluded not to sell.

Stocks went on rising; speculation went mad; bankers, merchants, lawyers, doctors, mechanics, laborers, even the very washerwomen and servant girls, were putting up their earnings on silver stocks, and every sun that rose in the morning went down on paupers enriched and rich men beggared.

What a gambling carnival it was! Gould and Curry soared to six thousand three hundred dollars a foot! And then -- all of a sudden, out went the bottom and everything and everybody went to ruin and destruction! The wreck was complete.
The bubble scarcely left a microscopic moisture behind it.

I was an early beggar and a thorough one.

My hoarded stocks were not worth the paper they were printed on.