It seemed as though the regeneration of Gilmartin had been achieved when
he changed his shabby raiment for expensive clothes. He paid his
tradesmen’s bills and moved into better quarters. He spent his money as
though he had made millions. One week after he had closed out the deal
his friends would have sworn Gilmartin had always been prosperous. That
was his exterior. His inner self remained the same—a gambler. He began
to speculate again, in the office of Freeman’s brokers.
At the end of the second month he had lost not only the $1,200 he had
deposited with the firm, but an additional $250 he had given his wife
and had been obliged to “borrow” back from her, despite her assurances
that he would lose it. This time, the slump was really unexpected by
all, even by the magnates—the mysterious and all powerful “they” of
Freeman’s—so that the loss of the second fortune did not reflect on
Gilmartin’s ability as a speculator but on his luck. As a matter of
fact, he had been too careful and had sinned from over-timidity at
first, only to plunge later and lose all.
As the result of much thought about his losses Gilmartin became a
professional tipster. To let others speculate for him seemed the only
sure way of winning. He began by advising ten victims—he learned in time
to call them clients—to sell Steel Rod preferred, each man 100 shares;
and to a second ten he urged the purchase of the same quantity of the
same stock. To all he advised taking four points’ profit. Not all
followed his advice, but the seven clients who sold it made between them
nearly $3,000 over night. His percentage amounted to $287.50. Six bought
and when they lost he told them confidentially how the treachery of a
leading member of the pool had obliged the pool managers to withdraw
their support from the stock temporarily; whence the decline. They
grumbled; but he assured them that he himself had lost nearly $1,600 of
his own on account of the traitor.
For some months Gilmartin made a fair living but business became very
dull. People learned to fight shy of his tips. The persuasiveness was
gone from his inside news and from his confidential advice from Sharpe
and from his beholding with his own eyes the signing of epoch-making
documents. Had he been able to make his customers alternate their
winnings and losses he might have kept his trade. But for example,
“Dave” Rossiter, in Stuart & Stern’s office, stupidly received the wrong
tip six times in succession. It wasn’t Gilmartin’s fault but Rossiter’s
bad luck.
At length failing to get enough clients in the ticker-district itself
Gilmartin was forced to advertise in an afternoon paper, six times a
week, and in the Sunday edition of one of the leading morning dailies.
They ran like this: