thousand dollars apiece. As city lots did not necessarily have anything to do with a city, and as California was a large and vacant place, there was material for countless millionaires. And as if California was not big enough, they were actually slipping over into Mexico! If you own a gravel walk you can be a millionaire on pebbles at a thousand dollars each—until you try to trade them for something else.
At the height of the boom one could come pretty close to trading for something else. The man who had been willing to close out his deals and go home with his cash, would have been genuinely wealthy. A few of them did just that; probably as many as have cashed in their chips at the height of a winning streak and left the casino.
IV
As time went on, however, more and more people made up their minds to "clean up and get out." When they came to do so, they found that there must be a shrinkage in the paper values of their holdings. This is the normal thing. But in the present booming market, it made them indignant. They called it "sacrificing," and saw no reason for it. Or they did actually sell out, and found themselves with a good sum of actual money in the bank. They were generally back in the game within a week. Some piece of land they had been watching, or had themselves sold, had gone up, and they could not stay out. It seemed too foolish to let such chances go!
Another still craftier set secretly believed that a set-back was imminent. They talked among themselves wisely of "action and reaction." The boom was bound to burst from overloading. Then the wise guy with ready cash could take his pick of choice property at rock bottom prices; and so would be in on the ground floor when the next boom started, probably within six months. For not one of them but believed that another boom would come, almost immediately. But the collapse could not possibly overtake them before next spring at earliest. The big rush from the East always took place after the holidays. The wealthy people came then; and then our profound student would unload quickly and at magnificent prices.
