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 over-hearing of the conversation was a bit of rare good luck
that raised Gilmartin 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 brokers.
Gilmartin, with the ten dollars he had borrowed, promptly bought ten
shares in a bucket shop at 63⅞; the stock promptly went to 62⅞; he was
promptly “wiped”; and the stock promptly went back to 64½.
On the next day a fellow-customer of the Gilmartin of old days invited
him to have a drink. Gilmartin 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 someone
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,” _i.e._ 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
side-wise 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 anyone,
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.
“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, skeptically, 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 64½ 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, $3,000; 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 $800. He told mutual friends that Smithers had
cheated him.