Explore "The Affair of the "Avalanche Bicycle and Tyre Co, Limited"" by Arthur Morrison on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
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Cycle companies were in the market everywhere. Immense fortunes were / being made in a few days and sometimes little fortunes were being / lost to build them up. Mining shares were dull for a season, and any / company with the word "cycle" or "tyre" in its title was certain to / attract capital, no matter what its prospects were like in the eyes / of the expert. All the old private cycle companies suddenly were / offered to the public, and their proprietors, already rich men, built / themselves houses on the Riviera, bought yachts, ran racehorses, and / left business for ever. Sometimes the shareholders got their money's / worth, sometimes more, sometimes less -- sometimes they got nothing / but total loss; but still the game went on. One could never open a / newspaper without finding, displayed at large, the prospectus of yet / another cycle company with capital expressed in six figures at least, / often in seven.