VOObyM

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
play, unless of course it is an exceptionally active market in which my commitments are
rather heavy. It was a bull market, as I remember it. The outlook was favorable for
general business and the stock market had slowed down but the tone was firm and all
indications pointed to higher prices.
One morning after we had breakfasted and had finished reading all the New York
morning papers, and had got tired of watching the sea gulls picking up clams and flying
up with them twenty feet in the air and dropping them on the hard wet sand to open them
for their breakfast, my friend and I started up the Boardwalk. That was the most exciting
thing we did in the daytime.
It was not noon yet, and we walked up slowly to kill time and breathe the salt air.
Harding Brothers had a branch office on the Boardwalk and we used to drop in every
morning and see how they'd opened. It was more force of habit than anything else, for I
wasn't doing anything.
The market, we found, was strong and active. My friend, who was quite bullish, was
carrying a moderate line purchased several points lower. He began to tell me what an
obviously wise thing it was to hold stocks for much higher prices. I wasn't paying
enough attention to him to take the trouble to agree with him. I was looking over the
quotation board, noting the changes they were mostly advances until I came to Union
Pacific. I got a feeling that I ought to sell it. I can't tell you more. I just felt like selling it.
I asked myself why I should feel like that, and I couldn't find any reason whatever for
going short of UP.
I stared at the last price on the board until I couldn't see any figures or any board or
anything else, for that
matter. All I knew was that I wanted to sell Union Pacific and I couldn't find out why I
wanted to. I must have looked queer, for my friend, who was standing alongside of me,
suddenly nudged me and asked, "Hey, what's the matter?"
"I don't know," I answered.
"Going to sleep?" he said.
"No," I said. "I am not going to sleep. What I am going to do is to sell that stock." I had
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