See that gentleman driving that splendid pair of sorrels. He is a fine
specimen of mere animal beauty. How well he drives. The ease and
carelessness with which he manages his splendid steeds, excites the
admiration of every one on the road. He is used to it. Five years ago
he was the driver of a public hack. He amassed a small sum of money,
and being naturally a sharp, shrewd man, went into Wall street, and
joined the "Curbstone Brokers." His transactions were not always open
to a rigid scrutiny, but they were profitable to him. He invested in
oil stocks, and with his usual good luck made a fortune. Now he
operates through his broker. His transactions are heavy, his
speculations bold and daring, but he is usually successful. He lives in
great splendor in one of the finest mansions in the city, and his
carriages and horses are superb. His wife and daughters are completely
carried away by their good fortune, and look with disdain upon all who
are not their equals or superiors in wealth. They are vulgar and ill
bred, but they are wealthy, and society worships them. There will come
a change some day. The husband and father will venture once too often
in his speculations, and his magnificent fortune will go with a crash,
and the family will return to their former state, or perhaps sink
lower, for there are very few men who have the moral courage to try to
rise again after such a fall, and this man is not one of them.

In watching the crowd on Broadway, one will frequently see, in some
shabbily dressed individual, who, with his hat drawn down close over
his eyes, is evidently shrinking from the possibility of being
recognized, the man who but a few weeks ago was one of the wealthiest
in the city. Then he was surrounded with splendor. Now he hardly knows
where to get bread for his family. Then he lived in an elegant mansion.
Now one or two rooms on the upper floor of some tenement house