There was a complete panic in the market, and wretched was the man who possessed French fives.

The afternoon's work so beautifully finished, John spent that night as true-born Britons are reported to have done before the battle of Hastings, rioting in drunken bliss, and panting for the morrow; and when the morrow came, and the Paris post with it, I must leave it to be understood with what complacency of triumph our enterprising stock-jobber hastened to sell again at one hundred and fourteen, pocketing, in the aggregate, a difference of several thousand pounds.

It was a feat altogether to ravish a delighted father's heart, and no wonder that he counted John so great a comfort.
Trick number two had been at once even more lucrative and more dangerous.

As a stock-broker, this enterprising Mr.Dillaway had peculiar opportunities of investigating closely certain records in the office for unclaimed dividends: he had an object in such close inspection, and discovered soon that one Mrs.Jane Mackenzie, of Ballyriggan, near Belfast, was a considerable proprietor, and had made no claim for years.

Why should so much money lie idle?
Was the woman dead?
Probably not; for in that case executors or administrators would have touched it.