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Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
goodness after ten years of searching for it with a microscope and was making you a
present of the discovery as well as of the sky, the sun and the firm's bank roll. He saw us
come up in the sporty-looking automobile, and as both of us were young and careless I
don't suppose I looked twenty he naturally concluded we were a couple of Yale boys. I
didn't tell him we weren't. He didn't give me a chance, but began delivering a speech. He
was very glad to see us. Would we have a comfortable seat? The market, we would find,
was philanthropically inclined that morning; in fact, clamoring to increase the supply of
collegiate pocket money, of which no intelligent undergraduate ever had a sufficiency
since the dawn of historic time. But here and now, by the beneficence of the ticker, a
small initial investment would return thousands. More pocket money than anybody
could spend was what the stock market yearned to yield.
Well, I thought it would be a pity not to do as the nice man of the bucket shop was so
anxious to have us do, so I told him I would do as he wished, because I had heard that
lots of people made lots of money in the stock market.
I began to trade, very conservatively, but increasing the line as I won. My friend
followed me.
We stayed overnight in New Haven and the next morning found us at the hospitable
shop at five minutes to ten. The orator was glad to see us, thinking his turn would cony
day. But I cleaned up within a few dollars of fifteen hundred. The next morning when
we dropped in on the great orator, and handed him an order to sell five hundred Sugar he
hesitated, but finally accepted it in silence! The stock broke over a point and I closed out
and gave him the ticket. There was exactly five hundred dollars coming to me in profits,
and my five hundred dollar margin. He took twenty fifties from the safe, counted them
three times very slowly, then he counted them again in front of me. It looked as if his
fingers were sweating mucilage the way the notes seemed to stick to him, but finally he
handed the money to me. He folded his arms, bit his lower lip, kept it bit, and stared at
the top of a window behind me.
I told him I'd like to sell two hundred Steel. But he never stirred. He didn't hear me. I
repeated my wish, only I made it three hundred shares. He turned his head. I waited for
the speech. But all he did was to look at me. Then he smacked his lips and swallowed as
if he was going to start an attack on fifty years of political misrule by the unspeakable
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