The Tipster | Page 3

to Fortune. Those old business acquaintances and former competitors whom he happened to meet in the street-cars or in the theatre lobbies always spoke to him as to a millionaire-to-be, in what they imagined was correct Wall Street jargon, to show him that they too knew something of the great game. But their efforts made him smile with a sense of superiority, at the same time that their admiration for his cleverness and their good-natured envy for his luck made his soul thrill joyously. Among his new friends in Wall Street also he found much to enjoy. The other customers--some of them very wealthy men--listened to his views regarding the market as attentively as he, later, felt it his polite duty to listen to theirs. The brokers themselves treated him as a "good fellow." They cajoled him into trading often--every one hundred shares he bought or sold meant $12.50 to them--and when he won, they praised his unerring discernment. When he lost they soothed him by scolding him for his recklessness--just as a mother will treat her three-year-old's fall as a great joke in order to deceive the child into laughing at its misfortune. It was an average office with an average clientèle.
From ten to three they stood before the quotation board and watched a quick-witted boy chalk the price changes, which one or another of the customers read aloud from the tape as it came from the ticker. The higher stocks went the more numerous the customers became, being allured in great flocks to the Street by the tales of their friends, who had profited greatly by the rise. All were winning, for all were buying stocks in a bull market. They resembled each other marvelously, these men who differed so greatly in cast of features and complexion and age. Life to all of them was full of joy. The very ticker sounded mirthful; its clicking told of golden jokes. And Gilmartin and the other customers laughed heartily at the mildest of stories without even waiting for the point of the joke. At times their fingers clutched the air happily, as if they actually felt the good money the ticker was presenting to them. They were all neophytes at the great game--lambkins who were bleating blithely to inform the world what clever and formidable wolves they were. Some of them had sustained occasional losses; but these were trifling compared with their winnings.
When the slump came all were heavily committed to the bull side. It was a bad slump. It was so unexpected--by the lambs--that all of them said, very gravely, it came like a thunderclap out of a clear sky. While it lasted, that is, while the shearing of the flock was proceeding, it was very uncomfortable. Those same joyous, winning stock-gamblers, with beaming faces, of the week before, were fear-clutched, losing stock-gamblers, with livid faces, on what they afterward called the day of the panic. It really was only a slump; rather sharper than usual. Too many lambs had been over-speculating. The wholesale dealers in securities--and insecurities--held very little of their own wares, having sold them to the lambs, and wanted them back now--cheaper. The customers' eyes, as on happier days, were intent on the quotation board. Their dreams were rudely shattered; the fast horses some had all but bought joined the steam yachts others almost had chartered. The beautiful homes they had been building were torn down in the twinkling of an eye. And the demolisher of dreams and dwellings was the ticker, that instead of golden jokes was now clicking financial death. They could not take their eyes from the board before them. Their own ruin, told in mournful numbers by the little machine, fascinated them. To be sure, poor Gilmartin said: "I've changed my mind about Newport. I guess I'll spend the summer on my own Hotel de Roof!" And he grinned; but he grinned alone. Wilson, the dry goods man, who laughed so joyously at everybody's jokes, was now watching, as if under a hypnotic spell, the lips of the man who sat on the high stool beside the ticker and called out the prices to the quotation boy. Now and again Wilson's own lips made curious grimaces, as if speaking to himself. Brown, the slender, pale-faced man, was outside in the hall, pacing to and fro. All was lost, including honor. And he was afraid to look at the ticker, afraid to hear the prices shouted, yet hoping--for a miracle! Gil-martin came out from the office, saw Brown and said, with sickly bravado: "I held out as long as I 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