A man may possess large acquisitiveness and benevolence at the same time,
like Sir Astley Cooper, and succeed both pecuniarily and professionally.
Such are, however, scarce. Those with an excess of the grasping principle
in their composition illustrate the truth that "where the treasure is the
heart will be also." Asleep or awake, drunk or sober, such men never lose
sight of the almighty dollar. The annexed story, though irreverent to the
doctors, is not irrelevant to the case:--
During the late "panic," a fellow, whose prominent feature was in his
Jewish nose, which presented the sign of acquisitiveness by the bridge
widening on to the cheeks above the _alæ_,--all men noted for accumulating
have this sign, hung out by nature as a warning to the unwary,--was making
a great noise, as he clung to a friendly lamp-post, to which he was
arguing the state of the money market. "Come, sir, you are making too much
noise," said a policeman.
[Illustration: CAPTURE OF A WALL STREET BULL.]
"Me? No, 'tain't me that's--hic--making the noise; it's the bulls--the
bulls, sir; them's what's making all the noise," replied the fellow,
skewing first one side of the post, then the other, trying to get a view
of his new intruder.
"You are tight, sir--tight as a peep," continued the watchman.
"Me tight? No, sir; it's the money-market what's--ti--tight," replied the
gentlemanly dressed individual, though much the worse for bad whiskey. "Go
down Wall Street, and Fisk and Vanderbuilt--all of 'em--will tell you so.
Everybody says money is--hic--tight. I never was more loose in
my--hic--life;" and he demonstrated the assertion by swinging very loosely
around the lamp-post, and falling down.
"There, you are down. Too drunk to stand up;" and the policeman helped him
to his feet again, and walked him along towards the station.
"No, sir. There you are wrong again; it's stocks that's down. It's the
stockholders--hic--that's staggering along; they've fallen and skinned
their noses on the curb-stone of adversity. There! don't you see
them--crawling along?"
"O, you've got the tremens. Come on," exclaimed the policeman.
"Me? No; it's the shorts and bears what's got the dol--hic--lar--tremens.
I've caught the pan--hics--panics, sir; that's all."
The policeman thrust the money-maniac into a cell, and the last seen of
him he leaned back against the wall, his feet braced out, while, hatless
and the knot of his cravat round under his left ear, he stood arguing the
money-market with an imaginary broker on the opposite side of his cell.