The Golden Flood by Edwin Lefevre — Read

Wall STREET was suffering from its worst disease -- dullness. The public -- the only genuine octopus -- did not find the menu printed on the ticker-tape at all appetizing. It was hard at work in its office, miles away from the Stock Exchange, out of hearing of the ticker, scanning the financial pages of the newspapers only on the street-cars to pass away an irksome half-hour. Months before, the fumes of the wine of gambling had gone to its head; and then the public had been made sober suddenly by the "shrinkage in quoted values," otherwise the shearing. Since then the public had grown a new fleece, though it was not yet itself aware of it.

It was a delicate task, before the president of the Metropolitan National Bank. He was a resourceful stock-market manipulator, though he would have resented being called a thief not half so hotly as being called a speculator, because that sounded worse in a bank president. He desired the public to buy bonds; not necessarily at high prices, but at any prices. It was purely philanthropy on the face of it. That is why the task was delicate. You can disarm suspicion if you are bad, in Wall Street. But, if you are good, the hopelessness of it is appalling. Moreover, there was no time for finesse or subtle strategy or ingenious experiments with the elemental psychology of stock gamblers. The occasion called for broadly-painted effects.