The Tipster | Page 5

to pay off the indebtedness and have left, in addition, $2,950; for he would have "pyramided" on the way up. He showed the brokers his figures, accusingly, and they had some words about it and he left the office, almost tempted to sue the firm for conspiracy with intent to defraud; but decided that it was "another of Luck's sockdolagers" and let it go at that, gambler-like.
When he returned to the brokers' office--the next day--he began to speculate in the only way he could--vicariously. Smith, for instance, who was long of 500 St. Paul at 125, took less interest in the deal than did Gilmartin, who thenceforth assiduously studied the news slips and sought information on St. Paul all over the Street, listening thrillingly to tips and rumors regarding the stock, suffering keenly when the price declined, laughing and chirruping blithely if the quotations moved upward, exactly as though it were his own stock. In a measure it was as an anodyne to his ticker fever. Indeed, in some cases his interest was so poignant and his advice so frequent--he would speak of our deal--that the lucky winner gave him a small share of his spoils, which Gilmartin accepted without hesitation--he was beyond pride-wounding by now--and promptly used to back some miniature deal of his own on the Consolidated Exchange or even in "Percy's"--a dingy little bucket shop, where they took orders for two shares of stock on a margin of 1 per cent; that is, where a man could bet as little as two dollars.
Later, it often came to pass that Gilmartin would borrow a few dollars when the customers were not trading actively. The amounts he borrowed diminished by reason of the increasing frequency of their refusals. Finally, he was asked to stay away from the office where once he had been an honored and pampered customer.
He became a Wall Street "has been" and could be seen daily on New Street, back of the Consolidated Exchange, where the "put" and "call" brokers congregate. The tickers in the saloons nearby fed his gambler's appetite. From time to time luckier men took him into the same be-tickered saloons, where he ate at the free lunch counters and drank beer and talked stocks and listened to the lucky winners' narratives with lips tremulous with readiness to smile and grimace. At times the gambler in him would assert itself and he would tell the lucky winners, wrathfully, how the stock he wished to buy but couldn't the week before had risen 18 points. But they, saturated with their own ticker fever, would nod absently, their soul's eyes fixed on some quotation-to-be; or they would not nod at all, but in their eagerness to look at the tape, from which they had been absent two long minutes, would leave him without a single word of consolation or even of farewell.

V
One day, in New Street, he overheard a very well-known broker tell another that Mr. Sharpe was "going to move up Pennsylvania Central right away." The overhearing of the conversation was a bit of rare good luck that raised Gil-martin from his sodden apathy and made him hasten to his brother-in-law, who kept a grocery store in Brooklyn. He implored Griggs to go to a broker and buy as much Pennsylvania Central as he could--that is, if he wished to live in luxury the rest of his life. Sam Sharpe was going to put it up. Also, he borrowed ten dollars.
Griggs was tempted. He debated with himself many hours, and at length yielded with misgivings. He took his savings and bought one hundred shares of Pennsylvania Central at 64, and began to neglect his business in order to study the financial pages of the newspapers. Little by little Gilmartin's whisper set in motion within him the wheels of a ticker that printed on his day-dreams the mark of the dollar. His wife, seeing him preoccupied, thought business was bad; but Griggs denied it, confirming her worst fears. Finally, he had a telephone put in his little shop, to be able to talk to his broker.
Gilmartin, with the ten dollars he had borrowed, promptly bought ten shares in a bucket shop at 63%; the stock promptly went to 62%; he was promptly "wiped"; and the stock promptly went back to 64%.
On the next day a fellow-customer of Gilmartin of old days invited him to have a drink. Gil-martin resented the man's evident prosperity. He felt indignant at the ability of the other to buy hundreds of shares. But the liquor soothed him, and in a burst of mild remorse he told Smithers, after an apprehensive look about him as if he feared some one might overhear: "I'll tell you something, on the dead q. t., for your own benefit."
"Fire away!"
"Pa. Cent, is going 'way up."
"Yes?"