“I don’t care to give my name,” replied the other. And Mr. Streeter put down his pen.
“Not give your name?” he said.
“No,” said Montague quietly.
“Why?”—said Mr. Streeter—“I don’t understand—”
“I am a stranger in town,” said Montague, “and not accustomed to dealing in stocks. I should prefer to remain unknown.”
The man eyed him sharply. “Where do you come from?” he asked.
“From Mississippi,” was the reply.
“And have you a residence in New York?”
“At a hotel,” said Montague.
“You have to give some name,” said the other.
“Any will do,” said Montague. “John Smith, if you like.”
“We never do anything like this,” said the broker.
“We require that our customers be introduced. There are rules of the Exchange—there are rules—”
“I am sorry,” said Montague; “this would be a cash transaction.”
“How many shares do you want to buy?”
“Ten thousand,” was the reply.
Mr. Streeter became more serious. “That is a large order,” he said.
Montague said nothing.
“What do you wish to buy?” was the next question.
“Transcontinental Common,” he replied.
“Well,” said the other, after another pause-,-“we will try to accommodate you. But you will have to consider it—er—”
“Strictly confidential,” said Montague.
So Mr. Streeter made out the papers, and Montague, looking them over, discovered that they called for one hundred thousand dollars.
“That is a mistake,” he said. “I have only sixty thousand.”
“Oh,” said the other, “we shall certainly have to charge you a ten per cent, margin.”
Montague was not prepared for this contingency; but he did some mental arithmetic. “What is the present price of the stock?” he asked.
“Fifty-nine and five-eighths,” was the reply.
“Then sixty thousand dollars is more than ten per cent, of the market price,” said Montague.
“Yes,” said Mr. Streeter. “But in dealing with a stranger we shall certainly have to put a ‘stop loss’ order at four points above, and that would leave you only two points of safety—surely not enough.”
“I see,” said Montague—and he had a sudden appalling realization of the wild game which his brother had planned for him.
“Whereas,” Mr. Streeter continued, persuasively, “if you put up ten per cent., you will have six points.”
“Very well,” said the other promptly. “Then please buy me six thousand shares.”
So they closed the deal, and the papers were signed, and Mr. Streeter took the six new, crisp ten-thousand-dollar bills.
Then he escorted him to the outer office, remarking pleasantly on the way, “I hope you’re well advised. We’re inclined to be bearish upon Transcontinental ourselves—the situation looks rather squally.”
These words were not worth the breath it took to say them; but Montague was not aware of this, and felt a painful start within. But he answered, carelessly, that one must take his chance, and sat down in one of the customer’s chairs. Hammond and Streeter’s was like a little lecture-hall, with rows of seats and a big blackboard in front, with the initials of the most important stocks in columns, and yesterday’s closing prices above, on little green cards. At one side was a ticker, with two attendants awaiting the opening click.
In the seats were twenty or thirty men, old and young; most of them regular habitues, victims of the fever of the Street. Montague watched them, catching snatches of their whispered conversation, with its intricate and disagreeable slang. He felt intensely humiliated and uncomfortable—for he had got the fever of the Street into his own veins, and he could not conquer it. There were nasty shivers running up and down his spine, and his hands were cold.
He stared at the little figures, fascinated; they stood for some vast and tremendous force outside, which could not be controlled or even comprehended,—some merciless, annihilating force, like the lightning or the tornado. And he had put himself at the mercy of it; it might do its will with him! “Tr. C. 59 5/8” read the little pasteboard; and he had only six points of safety. If at any time in the day that figure should be changed to read “53 5/8”—then every dollar of Montague’s sixty thousand would be gone for ever! The great fee that he had worked so hard for and rejoiced so greatly over—that would be all gone, and a slice out of his inheritance besides!
A boy put into his hand a little four-page paper—one of the countless news-sheets which different houses and interests distributed free for advertising or other purposes; and a heading “Transcontinental” caught his eye, among the paragraphs in the Day’s Events. He read: “The directors’ meeting of the Transcontinental R.R. will be held at noon. It is confidently predicted that the quarterly dividend will be passed, as it has been for the last three quarters. There is great dissatisfaction among the stock-holders. The stock has been decidedly weak, with no apparent inside support; it fell off three points just before closing yesterday, upon the news of further proceedings by Western state officials, and widely credited rumours of dissensions among the directors, with renewed opposition to the control of the Hopkins interests.”
Ten o’clock came and went, and the ticker began its long journey. There was intense activity in Transcontinental, many thousands of shares changing hands, and the price swaying back and forth. When Oliver came in, in half an hour, it stood at 59 3/8.
“That’s all right,” said he. “Our time will not come till afternoon.”
“But suppose we are wiped out before afternoon?” said the other.
“That is impossible,” answered Oliver. “There will be big buying all the morning.”
They sat for a while, nervous and restless. Then, by way of breaking the monotony, Oliver suggested that his brother might like to see the “Street.” They went around the corner to Broad Street. Here at the head stood the Sub-treasury building, with all the gold of the government inside, and a Gatling gun in the tower. The public did not know it was there, but the financial men knew it, and it seemed as if they had huddled all their offices and banks and safe-deposit vaults under its shelter. Here, far underground, were hidden the two hundred millions of securities of the Oil Trust—in a huge six-hundred-ton steel vault, with a door so delicately poised that a finger could swing it on its hinges. And opposite to this was the white Grecian building of the Stock Exchange. Down the street were throngs of men within a roped arena, pushing, shouting, jostling; this was “the curb,” where one could buy or sell small blocks of stock, and all the wild-cat mining and oil stocks which were not listed by the Exchange. Rain or shine, these men were always here; and in the windows of the neighbouring buildings stood others shouting quotations to them through megaphones, or signalling in deaf and dumb language. Some of these brokers wore coloured hats, so that they could be distinguished; some had offices far off, where men sat all day with strong glasses trained upon them. Everywhere was the atmosphere of speculation—the restless, feverish eyes; the quick, nervous gestures; the haggard, care-worn faces. For in this game every man was pitted against every other man; and the dice were loaded so that nine out of every ten were doomed in advance to ruin and defeat. They procured passes to the visitors’ gallery of the Exchange. From here one looked down into a room one or two hundred feet square, its floor covered with a snowstorm of torn pieces of paper, and its air a babel of shouts and cries. Here were gathered perhaps two thousand men and boys; some were lounging and talking, but most were crowded about the various trading-posts, pushing, climbing over each other, leaping up, waving their hands and calling aloud. A “seat” in this exchange was worth about ninety-five thousand dollars, and so no one of these men was poor; but yet they came, day after day, to play their parts in this sordid arena, “seeking in sorrow for each other’s joy”: inventing a thousand petty tricks to outwit and deceive each other; rejoicing in a thousand petty triumphs; and spending their lives, like the waves upon the shore, a very symbol of human futility. Now and then a sudden impulse would seize them, and they would become like howling demons, surging about one spot, shrieking, gasping, clawing each other’s clothing to pieces; and the spectator shuddered, seeing them as the victims of some strange and dreadful enchantment, which bound them to struggle and torment each other until they were worn out and grey.