Friday, the Thirteenth | Page 3

an office," Bob used to say, "and the floor
of the Stock Exchange is just the chimney-place to roast my hoe-cake
in." So when our college days were over my able had saddled Bob's
youth with the heavy responsibilities of husbanding and directing his
family's slim finances that he took to business as a swallow to the air.
We entered the office of Randolph & Randolph on the same day, and
on its anniversary, a year later, my father summoned us into his office
for a sort of tally-up talk. Neither of us quite knew what was coming,
and we thrilled with pleasure when he said:
"Jim, you and Bob have fairly outdone my expectations. I have had my
eye on both of you and I want you to know that the kind of industry and
business intelligence you have shown here would have won you
recognition in any banking-house on 'the Street.' I want you both in the
firm--Jim to learn his way round so he can step into my shoes; you,
Bob, to take one of the firm's seats on the Stock Exchange."
Bob's face went red and then pale with happiness as he reached for my
father's hand.
"I'm very grateful to you sir, far more so than any words can say, but I
want to talk this proposition of yours over with Jim here first. He
knows me better than any one else in the world and I've some ideas I'd
like to thrash out with him."
"Speak up here, Bob," said my father.
"Well, sir, I should feel much better if I could go over there into the
swirl and smash it out for myself. You see if I could win out alone and

pay back the seat price, and then make a pile for myself, if you felt later
like giving me another chance to come into the firm, then I should not
be laying myself open to the charge of being a mere pensioner on your
friendship. You know what I mean, sir, and won't think I am filled with
any low-down pride, but if you will let me have the price of a Stock
Exchange seat on my note, and will give me the chance, when I get the
hang of the ropes, to handle some of the firm's orders, I shall be just as
much beholden to you and Jim, sir, and shall feel a lot better myself."
I knew what Bob meant; so did father, and we were glad enough to do
what he asked, father insisting on making the seat price in the form of a
present, after explaining to us that a foundation Stock Exchange rule
prohibited an applicant from borrowing the seat price. Four years after
Bob Brownley entered the Stock Exchange he had paid back the forty
thousand, with interest, and not only had a snug fifty thousand to his
credit on Randolph & Randolph's books, but was sending home six
thousand a year while living up to, as he jokingly put it, "an honest
man's notch." I may say in passing, that a Wall Street man's notch
would make twice six thousand yearly earnings cast an uncertain
shadow at Christmas time. Bob was the favourite of the Exchange, as
he had been the pet at school and at college, and had his hands full of
business three hundred days in the year. Besides Randolph &
Randolph's choicest commissions, he had the confidential orders of two
of the heavy plunging cliques.
I had just passed my thirty-second birthday when my kind old dad
suddenly died. For the previous six years I had been getting ready for
such an event; that is, I had grown accustomed to hearing my father say:
"Jim, don't let any grass grow in getting the hang of every branch of our
business, so that when anything happens to me there will be no
disturbance in 'the Street' in regard to Randolph & Randolph's affairs. I
want to let the world know as soon as possible that after I am gone our
business will run as it always has. So I will work you into my
directorships in those companies where we have interests and gradually
put you into my different trusteeships."
Thus at father's death there was not a ripple in our affairs and none of

the stocks known as "The Randolph's" fluttered a point because of that,
to the financial world, momentous event. I inherited all of father's
fortune other than four millions, which he divided up among relatives
and charities, and took command of a business that gave me an income
of two millions and a half a year.
Once more I begged Bob to come into the firm.
"Not yet, Jim," he replied. "I've got my seat and about a hundred