Wall street stories

nny story when the telephone on his desk buzzed. He said: "Excuse me for

ust my luck to be out. I might have known it!-Do you think so?-Well, then, sell the 200 Occidental common-You know best

d been here at half-past ten. They called me up to advise me to sell out, and the price is off over three points.

the money I mind so much as the tough luck of it. I didn't make my trade in camphor after all and I lost in stocks, when if I'd only waited five minu

game, aren't you?" asked

es. Just about t

having exaggerated, he immediately felt ver

smile of subtle relief to Gilmartin's lips. He was a pleasant-faced, pleasant-voiced man of three-and-thirty. He exhaled health, contentment, neatness, and an e

diamond ring, somewhat showy but obviously quite expensive. Hopkins' semi-envious admiration made Gilmartin add, genially: "What do you say to lunch? I feel I am entitle

said Hopkins, thinking of Mrs. Gil

ut," becoming nicely serious, "all that I'll make out of the stock market I'm going to put away for her, in her

t he went on, sincerely regretful: "She's visiting friends in Pennsylvania or I

id visions of what might have been; also the conviction that time, tide and the ticker wait for no man. Instead of buying and selling quinine and balsams and essential oils for Maxwell & Kip, drug brokers and importers, he decided to make the buying and selling of stocks and bonds his exclusive business. The h

d received the news in advance from a Washington customer. Other brokers had important 83connections in the Capital and therefore there was no time to lose. They dared not assume the responsibility of selling him out without his permission. Five minutes-five eternities!-passed before they coul

I

necdotes that made him blush and the others cheer; and how sorry they were he would no longer be with them, but how glad he was going to do so much better by himself; and they hoped he would not "cut" them when he met them after he had become a great millionaire. And Gilmartin felt his heart grow soft and feelings not all of happiness came over him. Danny, the dean of the office boys, whose surname was known only to the cashier, rose and said, in the tones of one speaking of a dear departed friend: "He was the best man in the place. He always was all right." Everybody laughed; whereupon Danny went on, with a defiant glare at the others: "I'd work for him for nothin' if he'd want me, instead of gettin' ten a week from anyone else." And when th

pleasant years anywhere as at the old office; and as for his spells of ill-temper-oh, yes, they needn't shake their heads; he knew he often was irritable-he had meant well and trusted they would forgive him. If he had his life to live over again he would try really to deserve all that they had said of him on this evening. And he was very, very s

e. They wished to be with him

I

f superiority, at the same time that their admiration for his cleverness and their good-natured envy for his luck made his soul thrill joyously. Among his new friends in Wall Street also he found much to enjoy. The other customers-some of them very wealthy men-listened to his views regarding the market as attentively as he, later, felt it his polite duty to listen to theirs. The brokers themselves treated him as a "go

winning, for all were buying stocks in a bull market. They resembled each other marvellously, these men who differed so greatly in cast of features and complexion and age. Life to all of them was full of joy. The very ticker sounded mirthful; its clicking told of golden jokes. And Gilmartin and the other customers laughed heartily at the mildest of stories without even waiting for th

re fear-clutched, losing stock-gamblers, with livid faces, on what they afterward called the day of the panic. It really was only a slump; rather sharper than usual. Too many lambs had been over-speculating. The wholesale dealers in securities-and insecurities-held very little of their own wares, having sold them to the lambs, and wanted them back now-cheaper. The customers' eyes, as on

e curious grimaces, as if speaking to himself. Brown, the slender, pale-faced man, was outside in the hall, pacing to and fro. All was lost, including honor. And he was afraid to look at the ticker, afraid to hear the prices shouted, yet hoping-for a miracle! Gilmartin came out from the office, saw Brown and said, with sickly bravado: "I held out as long as I could. But they got my ducats. A sporting life comes high, I tell you!" But Brown did not heed him and Gilmartin pushed the elevator-button 90impatiently and cursed at the delay. He not only had lost the "paper

V

. There was the shame of confessing defeat in Wall Street so soon after leaving Maiden Lane; but far stronger than this was the effect of the poison of gambling. If it was bad enough to be obliged to begin lower than he had been at Maxwell & Kip's, it was worse to

those customers who had survived, giving and receiving advice. And as time passed the grip of Wall Street on his soul grew stronger until it strangled all other aspirations. He could talk, think, dream of nothing but stocks. He could not read the newspapers without thinking how the market would "take" the news contained 92therein. If a huge refinery burnt down, with a loss to the "Trust" of $4,000,000, he sighed because he had not foreseen the catastrophe and had sold Sugar short. If a strike by the men of the Suburban Trolley Company led to violence and destruction of life and property, he cursed an unrelenting Fate because he had not had the prescience to "put out" a thou

t and lost again and again, until he owed the brokers a greater sum than he could possibly pay; and they refused point blank to give him credit for another cent, disregarding his vehement entreaties to buy a last hundred, just one more chance, the last, because he would be sure to win. And, of course, the long-expected happened and the market went up with a rapidity that made the Street blink; and Gilmartin figured that had not the

s regarding the stock, suffering keenly when the price declined, laughing and chirruping blithely if the quotations moved upward, exactly as though it were his own stock. In a measure it was as an anodyne to his ticker-fever. Indeed, in some cases his interest was so poignant and his advice so frequent-he would speak of our deal-that the lucky winner gave him a small

ng actively. The amounts he borrowed diminished by reason of the increasing frequency of their refusals.

unch counters and drank beer and talked stocks and listened to the lucky winners' narratives with lips tremulous with readiness to smile and grimace. At times the gambler in him would assert itself and he would tell the lucky winners, wrathfully, how the stock he wished to buy but couldn't the week before, had risen 18

96was a bit of rare good luck that raised Gilmartin from his sodden apathy and made him hasten to his brother-in-law who kept a grocery store in Brooklyn. He implored Griggs to go to a

business in order to study the financial pages of the newspapers. Little by little Gilmartin's whisper set in motion within him the wheels of a ticker that printed on his day-dreams the mark of the do

en shares in a bucket shop at 63?; the stock promptly went to 62?;

felt indignant at the ability of the other to buy hundreds of shares. But the liquor soothed him, and in a burst of mild remorse he told Smither

e aw

. is goin

id Smithe

ill cross

een munches

impressively-"told me, yesterday, to buy Pa. Cent. as he had accumulated his full line, and was ready to whoo

o?" nibble

told me he would make it cross par within sixty days. This 98is no hearsay, no tip. It's cold facts. I don't hear it's going

s and promised solemnly not to "take his profits," i.e. sell out, until Gilma

. "I'll tell you what Sharpe tells me. But you must keep it quiet

ce to face, he would not ha

That was bait for "suckers" not for clever young stock operators. But anyone, even a stranger, who said that "they"-the perennially mysterious "they," 99the "big men," the mighty "manipulators" whose life was one prolonged conspiracy to pull the wool over the public's eye

g for," said Gilmartin, who hadn'

at

ckled to death. He might well be-he's got 60,000 shares of Pennsylvan

ude from the money-borrowing humility of the previous week to the confident tone of a

d I know that by the time it is 75 the newspapers will all be talking about inside buying; and at 85 everybody will want to buy it on account of important developments; and at 95 there will be millions of bull tips on it and rumors of increased dividends, an

an, cordially. He was attac

Smithers and Freeman. Their profits were: Griggs, $3,000; Smithers, $15,100; Freeman, $2,750. Gilmartin made them give him a good percentage. He had no trouble with his brother-in-law. Gilmartin told him it was an inviolable Wall Street custom and so Griggs paid, with an air of much experience in such matters. Freeman was more or less grateful. But Smithers met Gilmartin an

make money and afterward they come to you and tell how damned smart they

Smithers, looking

uy it. And I told you when to sell it, too. The information came to me straight 102from headquarter

. He told mutual friends th

I

moved into better quarters. He spent his money as though he had made millions. One week after he had closed out the deal his friends would have sworn Gilmarti

r assurances that he would lose it. This time, the slump was really unexpected by all, even by the magnates-the mysterious and all powerful "they" of Freeman's-so that the loss of the second fortune

cond ten he urged the purchase of the same quantity of the same stock. To all he advised taking four points' profit. Not all followed his advice, but the seven clients who sold it made between them nearly $3,000 over night. His percentage amounted to $287.50. Six bought and when they lost h

l 104advice from Sharpe and from his beholding with his own eyes the signing of epoch-making documents. Had he been able to make his customers alternate their winnings and losses he might ha

tin was forced to advertise in an afternoon paper, six times a week, and in

AKE

Deal with genuine experts. Two methods of operating

O

profit. Three points margin will carry it. Remember how corre

MID

aiting daily for word. Will get it in time. Splendid opportunit

ENTIAL IN

has valuable information. I don't wish your money. Use your own broker. A

NCE $40 P

ition to keep informed as to developments and the operations of a pool. Parties who will carry for me 100 shares with a New

setts and electricians in New Jersey and coal miners in Pennsylvania and shop keepers and physicians and plumbers and undertakers in towns and cities near and far. Every m

hem grew his desire to speculate on his own a

fied 106moods. Out of politeness he asked the

hink of 'em?"

red Freeman, with proud humility. "I'm nobody." B

?" pursued Gilmar

. I just bought a thousand shares at 18

at

fit, I'll just tell you to buy all the Gas you possibly can carry. The deal is on. I know that certain papers were signed last night, a

tween Freeman's tips and his own. He said, he

eems pretty

ls at 250. Gilmartin, I don't hear

is speculating. He took every cent of the nine hundred dollars he had made from telling people the same things that Freeman

s broke seventeen points in ten short minutes. Gilmartin lost all he had. He found it impossible to pay for his advertisements. The telegraph companies refused to accept any more "collect" messages. This deprived Gilmartin of his income as a tipster. Griggs had kept on speculating and had lost all h

art, as abiding as an inventor's faith in himself, there dwelt the hope

nly begun to go up, and Gilmartin believed it and bought five shares in "Percy's," his favorite bucket-shop. The stock began to

One by one the victims went away and at length Gilmartin left the ticker district. He walked slowly down Wall Street, then turned up William Street, thinking of his luck. Cosmopolitan Traction 109had certainly looked like higher pri

d not eaten since breakfast. It did him no good to remember it

a burst of curious self-contempt,

as in which he could not buy even a cup of coffee. He had reached Maiden Lane. As h

ELL

usiness; 110Danny, some inches taller, no longer an office boy but spick and span in a blue serge suit and a necktie of the latest style, exhaling health and correctness; Williamson, grown very gray and showing on his face thirty

sociates, to speak to them, to shake hands with them, to be the old Gilmartin. He was about to step toward Jenkins; but stopped abruptly. His clothes were shabby and he

hat he thought now was that he would not have them see him in his plight. He felt the shabbiness o

he Street was old Trinity; to the right the

e Lane of the Ticker-s

walked forlornly northward, to the great Bridge, on his way to Br