To look over Wall street is quite another
matter, and P. knows how to do it to a T. Many a time at midnight, from
his perch on the tip of the spire of Old Trinity, (a tip-top point from
which to look over Wall street--you see the point?) has PUNCHINELLO
beheld the ghosts of dead speculations floating hopelessly through the
murky air. It could not be said of them that there was "no speculation
in those eyes." The ghost of a dead speculation was never so utterly
damned, the eyes of a ghost of a dead speculation were never so
absolutely dimmed, but that speculation of some kind might be discerned
fluttering like a mummy-cloth from the shadowy outline of the former,
and gleaming feebly from the gloomy goggles of the latter. Gleam on,
poor ghosts! Goggle while you may, and gibber. PUNCHINELLO watches you
with interest, (25 per cent.,) as you are weighed down to the very dirt
of The Street by the night-fog of Despair, flapping your wings on a very
small "margin," as if attempting vainly to "operate for a rise." Go
down, poor ghosts; repair to your incandescent place below, for there is
no hope for you. As we sit here upon our spire, we can not say to you,
_Dum spiramus speramus_.
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