Time-passed. As it had happened with his predecessor, so did it happen
now with Sally. He began by speculating, wildly at first, more carefully
later on. He met with sundry reverses, but he also made some very lucky
turns indeed, and he was “ahead of the game” by a very fair
amount—certainly a sum far greater than any plodding clerk could save in
five years, greater than many an industrious mechanic saves in his
entire life. From the bucket-shops he went to the Consolidated Exchange.
Then he asked Jacobs and the other two-dollar brokers to let him deal in
a small way with them, which they did out of personal liking for him,
until he had three separate accounts and could “swing a line” of several
hundred shares. He became neither more nor less than 10,000 other human
beings in Wall Street—moved by the same impulses, actuated by the same
feelings, experiencing the same emotions, having the same thoughts and
the same views of what they are pleased to call their “business.”
At last the blow fell which Sally had so long dreaded—he was “promoted”
to a clerkship in Tracy & Middleton’s office. The firm meant to reward
him for his devotion to his work, for his brightness and quickness. From
$15 a week they raised his salary to $25, which they considered quite
generous, especially in view of his youth, and that he had started three
years before with $8. He was only twenty now. But Sally, knowing it
meant the abandonment of his lucrative perquisites as telephone “boy,”
bemoaned his undeserved fate.
He took the money he had made to Mr. Tracy and told him an interesting
story of a rich aunt and a legacy, and asked him to let him open an
account in the office. Tracy congratulated his young clerk, took the
$6,500, and thereafter Sally was both an employee and a customer of
Tracy & Middleton.
Addicted to sharp practices though Mr. Tracy was and loving commissions
as he did, he nevertheless sought to curb Sally’s youthful propensity
for “plunging,” which was as near being kind as it was possible for a
stock-broker to be. But the money had “come easy.” That is why fortunes
won by stock gamblers are lost with apparent recklessness or stupidity.
Sally speculated with varying success, running up his winnings to
$10,000, and seeing them dwindle later to $6,000. But in addition to
becoming an inveterate speculator, he gained much valuable experience.
And when he had learned the tricks of the trade he was taken from the
ledgers and turned loose in the customers’ room, to take the latter’s
orders and keep them in good humor and tell them the current stories,
and give them impressively whispered “tips,” and “put them into” various
“deals” of the firm, and see that they traded as often as possible,
which meant commissions for the firm. He became friendly and even
familiar with Tracy & Middleton’s clients, among whom were some very
wealthy men, for a stock-broker’s office is a democratic place. Men who
would not have dreamed of taking their Wall Street acquaintances to
their homes or to their clubs for a million reasons, all but called each
other by their first names there.
He really was a bright, amiable fellow, very obliging—he was paid for it
by the firm—and he made the most of his opportunities. The customers
grew to like him exceedingly well, and to think with respect of his
judgment, market-wise. One day W. Basil Thornton, one of the wealthiest
and boldest customers of the firm, complained of the difficulty of
“beating the game” with the heavy handicap of the large brokerage
commission.
Jestingly, yet hoping to be taken seriously, Sally said: “Join the New
York Stock Exchange or buy me a seat, and form the firm of Thornton &
Hayward. Just think, Colonel, we would have your trade, and you could
bring some friends, and I could bring mine, and I think many of
these”—pointing to Tracy & Middleton’s customers—“would come over to us.
They all think a lot,” diplomatically, “of your opinions on the market.”
Thornton was favorably impressed with the idea, and Sally saw it. From
that moment on he worked hard to gain the Colonel’s confidence. It was
he who gave Thornton the first hint of Tracy & Middleton’s condition,
which led to the withdrawal of Thornton’s account—and his own—from the
office. It was a violation of confidence and of business ethics, but
Thornton was very grateful when, two months later, Tracy & Middleton
failed, under circumstances which were far from creditable, and which
were discussed at great length by the Street. He showed his gratitude by
adding a round sum to Sally’s $11,500, and Willis N. Hayward became a
member of the New York Stock Exchange. Shortly afterward the firm of
Thornton & Hayward, Bankers and Brokers, was formed. Sally, then in his
twenty-fifth year, had become a seasoned Wall Street man.