The Tipster | Page 4

could. But they got my ducats. A
sporting life comes high, I tell you!" But Brown did not heed him, and
Gilmartin pushed the elevator button impatiently and cursed at the
delay. He not only had lost the "paper" profits he had accumulated
during the bull market, but all his savings of years had crumbled away
beneath the strokes of the ticker that day. It was the same with all. They
would not take a small loss at first, but had held on, in the hope of a
recovery that would "let them out even." And prices had sunk and sunk
until the loss was so great that it seemed only proper to hold on, if need
be a year, for sooner or later prices must come back. But the break
"shook them out," and prices went just so much lower because so many
people had to sell whether they would or not.

IV
After the slump most of the customers returned to their legitimate
business--sadder, but it is to be feared not much wiser men. Gilmartin,
after the first numbing shock, tried to learn of fresh opportunities in the
drug business. But his heart was not in his search. There was the shame
of confessing defeat in Wall Street so soon after leaving Maiden Lane;
but far stronger than this was the effect of the poison of gambling. If it
was bad enough to be obliged to begin lower than he had been at
Maxwell & Kip's, it was worse to condemn himself to long weary years
of work in the drug business when his reward, if he remained strong
and healthy, would consist merely in being able to save a few
thousands. But a few lucky weeks in the stock market would win him
back all he had lost--and more!
He should have begun in a small way while he was learning to
speculate. He saw it now very clearly. Every one of his mistakes had
been due to inexperience. He had imagined he knew the market. But it
was only now that he really knew it, and therefore it was only now,
after the slump had taught him so much, that he could reasonably hope
to succeed. His mind, brooding over his losses, definitely dismissed as

futile the resumption of the purchase and sale of drugs, and dwelt
persistently on the sudden acquisition of stock market wisdom.
Properly applied, this wisdom ought to mean much to him. In a few
weeks he was again spending his days before the quotation board,
gossiping with those customers who had survived, giving and receiving
advice. And as time passed the grip of Wall Street on his soul grew
stronger until it strangled all other aspirations. He could talk, think,
dream of nothing but stocks. He could not read the newspapers without
thinking how the market would "take" the news contained therein. If a
huge refinery burned down, with a loss to the "Trust" of $4,000,000, he
sighed because he had not foreseen the catastrophe and had sold Sugar
short. If a strike by the men of the Suburban Trolley Company led to
violence and destruction of life and property, he cursed an unrelenting
Fate because he had not had the prescience to "put out" a thousand
shares of Trolley. And he constantly calculated to the last fraction of a
point how much money he would have made if he had sold short just
before the calamity at the very top prices and had covered his stock at
the bottom. Had he only known! The atmosphere of the Street, the odor
of speculation surrounded him on all sides, enveloped him like a fog,
from which the things of the outside world appeared as though seen
through a veil. He lived in the district where men do not say
"Good-morning" on meeting one another, but "How's the market?" or,
when one asks: "How do you feel?" receives for an answer: "Bullish!"
or "Bearish!" instead of a reply regarding the state of health.
At first, after the fatal slump, Gilmartin importuned his brokers to let
him speculate on credit, in a small way. They did. They were kindly
enough men and sincerely wished to help him. But luck ran against him.
With the obstinacy of unsuperstitious gamblers he insisted on fighting
Fate. He was a bull in a bear market; and the more he lost the more he
thought the inevitable "rally" in prices was due. He bought in
expectation of it and lost again and again, until he owed the brokers a
greater sum than he could possibly pay; and they refused point blank to
give him credit for another cent, disregarding his vehement entreaties to
buy a last hundred, just one more chance, the last, because he would be
sure to