Part 40

Mrs. Livingston gazed at the sinking stock and cried: “Oh, Mr. Haley! I don’t want to lose my five hundred dollars! What shall I do?”

“I don’t know, Mrs. Livingston, but if I were you I’d ask Mr. Livingston.”

“Oh, no! He doesn’t want me to speculate on my own hook. He told me so. He’ll buy or sell stock for me, if I ask him, but I’ve never before done trading that he did not know all about. I wouldn’t dare tell him.”

“That’s all right,” said Haley soothingly. “He is a wonderful trader and he’ll know just what to do.” Seeing her shake her head violently he added devilishly: “Or else you put up a thousand or two to take care of your Borneo.”

The alternative decided her then and there. She hung about the office, but as the market got weaker and weaker she came over to where I sat watching the board and told me she wanted to speak to me. We went into the private office and she told me the whole story. So I just said to her: “You foolish little girl, you keep your hands off this deal.”

She promised that she would, and so I gave her back her five hundred dollars and she went away happy. The stock was par by that time.

I saw what had happened. Wisenstein was an astute person. He figured that Mrs. Livingston would tell me what he had told her and I’d study the stock. He knew that activity always attracted me and I was known to swing a pretty fair line. I suppose he thought I’d buy ten or twenty thousand shares.

It was one of the most cleverly planned and artistically propelled tips I’ve ever heard of. But it went wrong. It had to. In the first place, the lady had that very day received an unearned five hundred dollars and was therefore in a much more venturesome mood than usual. She wished to make some money all by herself, and womanlike dramatised the temptation so attractively that it was irresistible. She knew how I felt about stock speculation as practised by outsiders, and she didn’t dare mention the matter to me. Wisenstein didn’t size up her psychology right.

He also was utterly wrong in his guess about the kind of trader I was. I never take tips and I was bearish on the entire market. The tactics that he thought would prove effective in inducing me to buy Borneo--that is, the activity and the three-point rise--were precisely what made me pick Borneo as a starter when I decided to sell the entire market.

After I heard Mrs. Livingston’s story I was keener than ever to sell Borneo. Every morning at the opening and every afternoon just before closing I let him have some stock regularly, until I saw a chance to take in my shorts at a handsome profit.

It has always seemed to me the height of damfoolishness to trade on tips. I suppose I am not built the way a tip-taker is. I sometimes think that tip-takers are like drunkards. There are some who can’t resist the craving and always look forward to those jags which they consider indispensable to their happiness. It is so easy to open your ears and let the tip in. To be told precisely what to do to be happy in such a manner that you can easily obey is the next nicest thing to being happy--which is a mighty long first step toward the fulfilment of your heart’s desire. It is not so much greed made blind by eagerness as it is hope bandaged by the unwillingness to do any thinking.

And it is not only among the outside public that you find inveterate tip-takers. The professional trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange is quite as bad. I am definitely aware that no end of them cherish mistaken notions of me because I never give anybody tips. If I told the average man, “Sell yourself five thousand Steel!” he would do it on the spot. But if I tell him I am quite bearish on the entire market and give him my reasons in detail, he finds trouble in listening and after I’m done talking he will glare at me for wasting his time expressing my views on general conditions instead of giving him a direct and specific tip, like a real philanthropist of the type that is so abundant in Wall Street--the sort who loves to put millions into the pockets of friends, acquaintances and utter strangers alike.

The belief in miracles that all men cherish is born of immoderate indulgence in hope. There are people who go on hope sprees periodically and we all know the chronic hope drunkard that is held up before us as an exemplary optimist. Tip-takers are all they really are.

I have an acquaintance, a member of the New York Stock Exchange, who was one of those who thought I was a selfish, cold-blooded pig because I never gave tips or put friends into things. One day--this was some years ago--he was talking to a newspaper man who casually mentioned that he had had it from a good source that G.O.H. was going up. My broker friend promptly bought a thousand shares and saw the price decline so quickly that he was out thirty-five hundred dollars before he could stop his loss. He met the newspaper man a day or two later, while he was still sore.

“That was a hell of a tip you gave me,” he complained.

“What tip was that?” asked the reporter, who did not remember.

“About G.O.H. You said you had it from a good source.”

“So I did. A director of the company who is a member of the finance committee told me.”

“Which of them was it?” asked the broker vindictively.

“If you must know,” answered the newspaper man, “it was your own father-in-law, Mr. Westlake.”

“Why in Hades didn’t you tell me you meant him!” yelled the broker. “You cost me thirty-five hundred dollars!” He didn’t believe in family tips. The farther away the source the purer the tip.

Old Westlake was a rich and successful banker and promoter. He ran across John W. Gates one day. Gates asked him what he knew. “If you will act on it I’ll give you a tip. If you won’t I’ll save my breath,” answered old Westlake grumpily.

“Of course I’ll act on it,” promised Gates cheerfully.

“Sell Reading! There is a sure twenty-five points in it, and possibly more. But twenty-five absolutely certain,” said Westlake impressively.

“I’m much obliged to you,” and Bet-you-a-million Gates shook hands warmly and went away in the direction of his broker’s office.

Westlake had specialized on Reading. He knew all about the company and stood in with the insiders so that the market for the stock was an open book to him and everybody knew it. Now he was advising the Western plunger to go short of it.

Well, Reading never stopped going up. It rose something like one hundred points in a few weeks. One day old Westlake ran smack up against John W. in the Street, but he made out he hadn’t seen him and was walking on. John W. Gates caught up with him, his face all smiles and held out his hand. Old Westlake shook it dazedly.

“I want to thank you for that tip you gave me on Reading,” said Gates.