VOObyM

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
"Yes," I said.
"No." And he shook his head. "No, you don't. You wouldn't get enough fun out of it.
You certainly do not work merely to add a few more dollars to your bank account and
you are not in Wall Street because you like easy money. You get your fun some other
way. Well, same here."
I did not argue but asked him, "And how do you get your fun?"
"Well," he confessed, "we've all got a weak spot."
"And what's yours?"
"Vanity," he said.
"Well," I told him, "you succeeded in getting me to sign on. Now I want to sign off, and
I am paying you two hundred dollars for ten minutes' work. Isn't that enough for your
pride?"
"No," he answered. "You see, all the rest of the bunch have been working Wall Street
for months and failed to make expenses. They said it was the fault of the goods and the
territory. So the office sent for me to prove that the fault was with their salesmanship
and not with the books or the place. They were working on a 25 per cent commission. I
was in Cleveland, where I sold eighty-two sets in two weeks. I am here to sell a certain
number of sets not only to people who did not buy from the other agents but to people
they couldn't even get to see. That's why they give me 33-1/3 percent."
"I can't quite figure out how you sold me that set."
"Why," he said consolingly, "I sold J. P. Morgan a set."
"No, you didn't," I said. He wasn't angry. He simply said, "Honest, I did!"
"A set of Walter Scott to J. P. Morgan, who not only has some fine editions but probably
the original manuscripts of some of the novels as well?"
"Well, here's his John Hancock." And he promptly flashed on me a contract signed by J.
P. Morgan himself. It might not have been Mr. Morgan's signature, but it did not occur
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