Part 6

“I know that bird,” I said.

“He’s no good,” said McDevitt.

“He’s worse than that,” I said, “and I have a little matter to settle with him.”

“Meaning how?”

“The only way I can hit any of the short sports is through their pocketbook. I can’t touch him in St. Louis just now, but some day I will.” And I told McDevitt my grievance.

“Well,” says old Mac, “he tried to connect here in New York and couldn’t make it, so he’s opened a place in Hoboken. The word’s gone out that there is no limit to the play and that the house roll has got the Rock of Gibraltar faded to the shadow of a bantam flea.”

“What sort of a place?” I thought he meant pool room.

“Bucket shop,” said McDevitt.

“Are you sure it’s open?”

“Yes; I’ve seen several fellows who’ve told me about it.”

“That’s only hearsay,” I said. “Can you find out positively if it’s running, and also how heavy they’ll really let a man trade?”

“Sure, sonny,” said McDevitt. “I’ll go myself to-morrow morning, and come back and tell you.”

He did. It seems Teller was already doing a big business and would take all he could get. This was on Friday. The market had been going up all that week--this was twenty years ago, remember--and it was a cinch the bank statement on Saturday would show a big decrease in the surplus reserve. That would give the conventional excuse to the big room traders to jump on the market and try to shake out some of the weak commission-house accounts. There would be the usual reactions in the last half hour of the trading, particularly in stocks in which the public had been the most active. Those, of course, also would be the very stocks that Teller’s customers would be most heavily long of, and the shop might be glad to see some short selling in them. There is nothing so nice as catching the suckers both ways; and nothing so easy--with one-point margins.

That Saturday morning I chased over to Hoboken to the Teller place. They had fitted up a big customers’ room with a dandy quotation board and a full force of clerks and a special policeman in gray. There were about twenty-five customers.

I got talking to the manager. He asked me what he could do for me and I told him nothing; that a fellow could make much more money at the track on account of the odds and the freedom to bet your whole roll and stand to win thousands in minutes instead of piking for chicken feed in stocks and having to wait days, perhaps. He began to tell me how much safer the stock-market game was, and how much some of their customers made--you’d have sworn it was a regular broker who actually bought and sold your stocks on the Exchange--and how if a man only traded heavy he could make enough to satisfy anybody. He must have thought I was headed for some pool room and he wanted a whack at my roll before the ponies nibbled it away, for he said I ought to hurry up as the market closed at twelve o’clock on Saturdays. That would leave me free to devote the entire afternoon to other pursuits. I might have a bigger roll to carry to the track with me--if I picked the right stocks.

I looked as if I didn’t believe him, and he kept on buzzing me. I was watching the clock. At 11:15 I said, “All right,” and I began to give him selling orders in various stocks. I put up two thousand dollars in cash, and he was very glad to get it. He told me he thought I’d make a lot of money and hoped I’d come in often.

It happened just as I figured. The traders hammered the stocks in which they figured they would uncover the most stops, and, sure enough, prices slid off. I closed out my trades just before the rally of the last five minutes on the usual traders’ covering.

There was fifty-one hundred dollars coming to me. I went to cash in.

“I’m glad I dropped in,” I said to the manager, and gave him my tickets.

“Say,” he says to me, “I can’t give you all of it. I wasn’t looking for such a run. I’ll have it here for you Monday morning, sure as blazes.”

“All right. But first I’ll take all you have in the house,” I said.

“You’ve got to let me pay off the little fellows,” he said. “I’ll give you back what you put up, and anything that’s left. Wait till I cash the other tickets.” So I waited while he paid off the winners. Oh, I knew my money was safe. Teller wouldn’t welsh with the office doing such a good business. And if he did, what else could I do better than to take all he had then and there? I got my own two thousand dollars and about eight hundred dollars besides, which was all he had in the office. I told him I’d be there Monday morning. He swore the money would be waiting for me.

I got to Hoboken a little before twelve on Monday. I saw a fellow talking to the manager that I had seen in the St. Louis office the day Teller told me to go back to Dolan. I knew at once that the manager had telegraphed to the home office and they’d sent up one of their men to investigate the story. Crooks don’t trust anybody.

“I came for the balance of my money,” I said to the manager.

“Is this the man?” asked the St. Louis chap.

“Yes,” said the manager, and took a bunch of yellow backs from his pocket.

“Hold on!” said the St. Louis fellow to him and then turns to me, “Say, Livingston, didn’t we tell you we didn’t want your business?”

“Give me my money first,” I said to the manager, and he forked over two thousands, four five-hundreds and three hundreds.