Halsey Co. | Page 3

his career of newsboy. He had laughing blue eyes and a handsome face, while his mouth showed that he possessed a dauntless spirit. His mother died long before his father did, and he and his little sister lived with an aunt--his mother's sister--who was a childless widow. She was a mother to him and Adah, who was two years younger than Fred, a pretty blue-eyed little miss with golden hair and pearly teeth.
She did washing, and Fred sold papers, while Adah was a cash girl in one of the big stores on Grand street. Even then it was but a poor living for them in the great city, where grasping landlords demanded rent money with the regularity of the almanac. When Fred Halsey went out of the bank with ten dollars in his pocket and $250 more in the bank behind him, he had a feeling in his heart he never had there before. The whole world seemed opened to him. Rich bankers and brokers had shaken hands with him and praised him for what he had done.
"And I'm rich now myself," he said to himself, as he darted up toward Broadway. "Whew! I'm rich! I'm rich!"
"Hello, Fred!"
"Hello, Bob! Where are you going?"
"Up to the telegraph office."
"I'm going that way, too," and he went along with Bob Newcombe, a messenger boy in Broker Manson's office, who was his chum and friend, and about the same age as himself.
"Sold all your papers?" Bob asked.
"Yes, all I am going to sell to-day,"
"Made enough to stop on, eh?"
"Yes."
Bob laughed and remarked:
"If I had a hundred dollars I could make three hundred in a week."
Fred started.
"How?" he asked.
"Big deal going on in the Stock Exchange. Heard 'em fixing it up in the office this morning."
"What is it?"
"Corner in B. & H."
Fred had been selling papers in Wall Street long enough to be familiar with all the terms used by brokers and bankers. He knew all about "puts" and "calls," "bulls" and "bears," and had read eagerly the stories of fortunes won or lost in the mad whirl of speculation down there.
"Sure you could make it, Bob?" he finally asked of the messenger boy.
"Of course I am. I've seen it done many a time. When three or four big brokers club together to boom a stock it booms, and then the lambs lose their fleece."
"But wouldn't you be a lamb and lose your fleece, too?"
"No. I wouldn't buy when it had boomed. I'd buy before and sell when it went up."
They entered the telegraph office, and Bob sent off the message he had brought, after which they went out on the street again.
"What's B. & H. going at now?" Fred asked.
"It's going at forty-seven. It will be up to fifty to-morrow when the Stock Exchange closes."
"How do you know that?"
"Mr. Manson is going to buy up all the stock. He has millions behind him. The stock will go up, up, up, till it topples over on the lambs. Oh, I've seen it done a dozen times. If I had one hundred dollars, I'd put it up on ten percent margin--every dollar of it--and scoop in three hundred dollars inside of a week."
"Say, Bob, I've got the 'scads.'"
"Eh! Huh?" and Bob stopped and stared at him.
"I've got the 'chink,' the 'rhino,' the hundred dollars," and Fred told him the story of what had taken place in the bank but a short half hour before.
Bob was staggered.
"Git a hundred quick, Fred. Mr. Tabor will buy on a margin for us."
"Come on. I'll do it," and Fred hurried back to the bank and sent word in to Mr. Barron that he wanted $100 more of his money.
It was sent out to him, and he and Bob ran round to Broker Tabor's office. It lacked but ten minutes of three o'clock.
"Mr. Tabor, will you buy on a margin for us?" Bob asked the broker.
"Hello, Halsey!" exclaimed the broker, on seeing Fred.
"Hello, sir," returned Fred, seeing he was one of the brokers who had given him the money in Barron's office.
"Yes. What is it you want bought?" the broker asked Bob.
"B. & H., sir."
"All right; where's your money?"
"Here it is," said Fred, handing him the money.
"Going into business, eh?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, what name shall I use?" and Tabor took up his pen to write a receipt for the money.
"Halsey & Co.," said Bob. "I don't know whether Mr. Manson would like to have me do such a thing, so put it that way. It's Fred's money, too."
The broker laughed, wrote the receipt, and handed it to Fred, with the remark:
"You will soon learn how easy it is to lose money in Wall Street."
"When a man loses, somebody wins," Fred replied, and Tabor never forgot the remark, for he had reason to remember it ere he was a year older. The two