After the slump most of the customers returned to their legitimate
business--sadder, but it is to be feared not much wiser men. Gilmartin,
after the first numbing shock, tried to learn of fresh opportunities in
the drug business. But his heart was not in his search. 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 condemn himself to long weary
years of work in the drug business when his reward, if he remained
strong and healthy, would consist merely in being able to save a few
thousands. But a few lucky weeks in the stock market would win him back
all he had lost--and more!
He should have begun in a small way while he was learning to speculate.
He saw it now very clearly. Every one of his mistakes had been due to
inexperience. He had imagined he knew the market. But it was only now
that he really knew it, and therefore it was only now, after the slump
had taught him so much, that he could reasonably hope to succeed. His
mind, brooding over his losses, definitely dismissed as futile the
resumption of the purchase and sale of drugs, and dwelt persistently on
the sudden acquisition of stock market wisdom. Properly applied, this
wisdom ought to mean much to him. In a few weeks he was again spending
his days before the quotation board, gossiping with 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 therein. If a huge refinery burned 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 thousand shares of Trolley. And he constantly
calculated to the last fraction of a point how much money he would
have made if he had sold short just before the calamity at the very top
prices and had covered his stock at the bottom. Had he only known! The
atmosphere of the Street, the odor of speculation surrounded him on all
sides, enveloped him like a fog, from which the things of the outside
world appeared as though seen through a veil. He lived in the district
where men do not say “Good-morning” on meeting one another, but “How’s
the market?” or, when one asks: “How do you feel?” receives for an
answer: “Bullish!” or “Bearish!” instead of a reply regarding the state
of health.
At first, after the fatal slump, Gilmartin importuned his brokers to
let him speculate on credit, in a small way. They did. They were kindly
enough men and sincerely wished to help him. But luck ran against him.
With the obstinacy of unsuperstitious gamblers he insisted on fighting
Fate. He was a bull in a bear market; and the more he lost the more
he thought the inevitable “rally” in prices was due. He bought in
expectation of it 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 brokers refused his last order, he would have
made enough to pay off the indebtedness and have left, in addition,
$2,950; for he would have “pyramided” on the way up. He showed the
brokers his figures, accusingly, and they had some words about it and
he left the office, almost tempted to sue the firm for conspiracy
with intent to defraud; but decided that it was “another of Luck’s
sockdolagers” and let it go at that, gambler-like.
When he returned to the brokers’ office--the next day--he began to
speculate in the only way he could--vicariously. Smith, for instance,
who was long of 500 St. Paul at 125, took less interest in the deal than
did Gilmartin, who thenceforth assiduously studied the news slips
and sought information on St. Paul all over the Street, listening
thrillingly to tips and rumors 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 share of his
spoils, which Gilmartin accepted without hesitation--he was beyond
pride-wounding by now--and promptly used to back some miniature deal
of his own on the Consolidated Exchange or even in “Percy’s”--a dingy
little bucket shop, where they took orders for two shares of stock on
a margin of 1 per cent; that is, where a man could bet as little as two
dollars.
Later, it often came to pass that Gilmartin would borrow a few dollars
when the customers were not trading actively. The amounts he borrowed
diminished by reason of the increasing frequency of their refusals.
Finally, he was asked to stay away from the office where once he had
been an honored and pampered customer.
He became a Wall Street “has been” and could be seen daily on New
Street, back of the Consolidated Exchange, where the “put” and “call”
brokers congregate. The tickers in the saloons nearby fed his gambler’s
appetite. From time to time luckier men took him into the same
be-tickered saloons, where he ate at the free lunch 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 points. But they, saturated with their own ticker fever,
would nod absently, their soul’s eyes fixed on some quotation-to-be; or
they would not nod at all, but in their eagerness to look at the tape,
from which they had been absent two long minutes, would leave him
without a single word of consolation or even of farewell.
V
One day, in New Street, he overheard a very well-known broker tell
another that Mr. Sharpe was “going to move up Pennsylvania Central right
away.” The overhearing of the conversation was a bit of rare good luck
that raised Gil-martin 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 broker and buy as much Pennsylvania Central as he could--that
is, if he wished to live in luxury the rest of his life. Sam Sharpe was
going to put it up. Also, he borrowed ten dollars.
Griggs was tempted. He debated with himself many hours, and at length
yielded with misgivings. He took his savings and bought one hundred
shares of Pennsylvania Central at 64, and began to neglect his 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 dollar. His wife,
seeing him preoccupied, thought business was bad; but Griggs denied
it, confirming her worst fears. Finally, he had a telephone put in his
little shop, to be able to talk to his broker.
Gilmartin, with the ten dollars he had borrowed, promptly bought ten
shares in a bucket shop at 63%; the stock promptly went to 62%; he was
promptly “wiped”; and the stock promptly went back to 64%.
On the next day a fellow-customer of Gilmartin of old days invited him
to have a drink. Gil-martin resented the man’s evident prosperity. He
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
Smithers, after an apprehensive look about him as if he feared some one
might overhear: “I’ll tell you something, on the dead q. t., for your
own benefit.”
“Fire away!”
“Pa. Cent, is going ‘way up.”
“Yes?” said Smithers, calmly.
“Yes; it will cross par sure.”
“Umph!” between munches of a pretzel.
“Yes. Sam Sharpe told”--Gilmartin was on the point of saying a “friend
of mine,” but caught himself and went on, impressively--“told me,
yesterday, to buy Pa. Cent., as he had accumulated his full line, and
was ready to whoop it up. And you know what Sharpe is,” he finished, as
if he thought Smithers was familiar with Sharpe’s powers.
“Is that so,” nibbled Smithers.
“Why, when Sharpe makes up his mind to put up a stock, as he intends to
do with Pa. Cent., nothing on earth can stop him. He told me he would
make it cross par within sixty days. This is no hearsay, no tip. It’s
cold facts, I don’t _hear_ it’s going up; I don’t _think_ it’s going up;
I _know_ it’s going up. Understand?” And he shook his right forefinger
with a hammering motion.
In less than five minutes Smithers was so wrought up that he bought 500
shares and promised solemnly not to “take his profits,” s. o. sell out,
until Gilmartin said the word. Then they had another drink and another
look at the ticker.
“You want to keep in touch with me,” was Gilmartin’s parting shot.
“I’ll tell you what Sharpe tells me. But you must keep it quiet,” with a
sidewise nod that pledged Smithers to honorable secrecy.
Had Gilmartin met Sharpe face to face, he would not have known who was
before him.
Shortly after he left Smithers he buttonholed another acquaintance,
a young man who thought he knew Wall Street, and therefore had a
hobby--manipulation. No one could induce him to buy stocks by telling
him how well the companies were doing, how bright the prospects, etc.
That was bait for “suckers,” not for clever young stock operators.
But any one, even a stranger, who said that “they”--the perennially
mysterious “they,” the “big men,” the mighty “manipulators” whose
life was one prolonged conspiracy to pull the wool over the public’s
eyes--“they” were going to “jack up” these or the other shares, was
welcomed and his advice acted upon. Young Freeman believed in nothing
but “their” wickedness and “their” power to advance or depress stock
values at will. Thinking of his wisdom had given him a chronic sneer.
“You’re just the man I was looking for,” said Gilmartin, who hadn’t
thought of the young man at all.
“Are you a deputy sheriff?”
“No.” A slight pause for oratorical effect. “I had a long talk with Sam
to-day.”
“What Sam?”
“Sharpe. The old boy sent for me. He was in mighty good humor
too. Tickled to death. He might well be--he’s got 60,000 shares of
Pennsylvania Central. And there’s going to be from 50 to 60 points
profit in it.”
“H’m!” sniffed Freeman, sceptically, yet impressed by the change In
Gilmartin’s attitude from the money-borrowing humility of the previous
week to the confident tone of a man with a straight tip. Sharpe was
notoriously kind to his old friends--rich or poor.
“I was there when the papers were signed,” Gilmartin said, hotly. “I
was going to leave the room, but Sam told me I needn’t. I can’t tell you
what it is about; really I can’t. But he’s simply going to put the stock
above par. It’s 64 1/2 now, and you know and 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, and people who would not look at it thirty points lower will
rush in and buy it by the bushel. Let me know who is manipulating a
stock, and to h--l with dividends and earnings. Them’s _my_ sentiments,”
with a final hammering nod, as if driving in a profound truth.
“Same here,” assented Freeman, cordially. He was attacked on his
vulnerable side.
Strange things happen in Wall Street. Sometimes tips come true. It so
proved in this case. Sharpe started the stock upward brilliantly--the
movement became historic in the Street--and Pa. Cent, soared dizzily and
all the newspapers talked of it and the public went mad over it and
it touched 80 and 85 and 88 and higher, and then Gilmartin made his
brother-in-law sell out and Smithers and Freeman. Their profits were:
Griggs, $8,000; 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, and full of his good luck
repeated what he had told a dozen men within the hour: “I did a dandy
stroke the other day. Pa. Cent. looked to me like higher prices and I
bought a wad of it. I’ve cleaned up a tidy sum,” and he looked proud of
his own penetration. He really had forgotten that it was Gilmartin who
had given him the tip. But not so Gilmartin, who retorted, witheringly:
“Well, I’ve often heard of folks that you put into good things and they
make money and afterward they come to you and tell how damned smart
they were to hit it right. But you can’t work that on me. I’ve got
witnesses.”
“Witnesses?” echoed Smithers, looking cheap. He remembered.
“Yes, wit-ness-es,” mimicked Gilmartin, scornfully, “I all but had to
get on my knees to make you buy it. And I told you when to sell it, too.
The information came to me straight from headquarters and you got
the use of it, and now the least you can do is to give me twenty-five
hundred dollars.”
In the end he accepted eight hundred dollars. He told mutual friends
that Smithers had cheated him.