Everybody in the drug trade seemed to think that Gilmartin was on the
high road to Fortune. Those old business acquaintances and former
competitors whom he happened to meet in the streetcars or in theatre
lobbies always spoke to him as to a millionaire-to-be, in what they
imagined was correct Wall Street jargon, to show him that they too knew
something of the great game. But their efforts made him smile with a
sense of 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
“good fellow.” They cajoled him into trading often—every one-hundred
shares he bought or sold meant $12.50 to them—and when he won, they
praised his unerring discernment. When he lost they soothed him by
scolding him for his recklessness—just as a mother will treat her
three-years-old’s fall as a great joke in order to deceive the child
into laughing at its misfortune. It was an average office with an
average clientele.
From ten to three they stood before the quotation board and watched a
quick-witted boy chalk the price-changes, which one or another of the
customers read aloud from the tape as it came from the ticker. The
higher stocks went the more numerous the customers became, being allured
in great flocks to the Street by the tales of their friends, who had
profited greatly by the rise. All were 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 the
point of the joke. At times their fingers clutched the air happily, as
if they actually felt the good money the ticker was presenting to them.
They were all neophytes at the great game—lambkins who were bleating
blithely to inform the world what clever and formidable wolves they
were. Some of them had sustained occasional losses; but these were
trifling compared with their winnings.
When the slump came all were heavily committed to the bull side. It was
a bad slump. It was so unexpected—by the lambs—that all of them said,
very gravely, it came like a thunderclap out of a clear sky. While it
lasted, that is, while the shearing of the flock was proceeding, it was
very uncomfortable. Those same joyous, winning stock-gamblers, with
beaming faces, of the week before, were 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 happier days were intent on the quotation-board. Their
dreams were rudely shattered; the fast horses some had all but bought
joined the steam-yachts others almost had chartered. The beautiful homes
they had been building were torn down in the twinkling of an eye. And
the demolisher of dreams and dwellings was the ticker, that instead of
golden jokes, was now clicking financial death.
They could not take their eyes from the board before them. Their own
ruin, told in mournful numbers by the little machine, fascinated them.
To be sure, poor Gilmartin said: “I’ve changed my mind about Newport. I
guess I’ll spend the summer on my own _Hotel de Roof_!” And he grinned;
but he grinned alone. Wilson, the dry goods man, who laughed so joyously
at everybody’s jokes, was now watching, as if under a hypnotic spell,
the lips of the man who sat on the high stool beside the ticker and
called out the prices to the quotation boy. Now and again Wilson’s own
lips made 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 impatiently and cursed at the delay. He not only had
lost the “paper” profits he had accumulated during the bull-market but
all his savings of years had crumbled away beneath the strokes of the
ticker that day. It was the same with all. They would not take a small
loss at first but had held on, in the hope of a recovery that would “let
them out even.” And prices had sunk and sunk until the loss was so great
that it seemed only proper to hold on, if need be a year, for sooner or
later prices must come back. But the break “shook them out,” and prices
went just so much lower because so many people had to sell, whether they
would or not.