was nearer than Teller, and I went there first. I was hoping I might be allowed to do business a few days before they told me to take my trade somewhere else. I walked in. It was a whopping big place and there must have been at least a couple of hundred people there staring at the quotations. I was glad, because in such a crowd I stood a better chance of being unnoticed. I stood and watched the board and looked them over carefully until I picked out the stock for my initial play.
I looked around and saw the order-clerk at the window where you put down your money and get your ticket. He was looking at me so I walked up to him and asked, “Is this where you trade in cotton and wheat?”
“Yes, sonny,” says he.
“Can I buy stocks too?”
“You can if you have the cash,” he said.
“Oh, I got that all right, all right,” I said like a boasting boy.
“You have, have you?” he says with a smile.
“How much stock can I buy for one hundred dollars?” I asked, peeved-like.
“One hundred; if you got the hundred.”
“I got the hundred. Yes; and two hundred too!” I told him.
“Oh, my!” he said.
“Just you buy me two hundred shares,” I said sharply.
“Two hundred what?” he asked, serious now. It was business.
I looked at the board again as if to guess wisely and told him, “Two hundred Omaha.”
“All right!” he said. He took my money, counted it and wrote out the ticket.
“What’s your name?” he asked me, and I answered, “Horace Kent.”
He gave me the ticket and I went away and sat down among the customers to wait for the roll to grow. I got quick action and I traded several times that day. On the next day too. In two days I made twenty-eight hundred dollars, and I was hoping they’d let me finish the week out. At the rate I was going, that wouldn’t be so bad. Then I’d tackle the other shop, and if I had similar luck there I’d go back to New York with a wad I could do something with.
On the morning of the third day, when I went to the window, bashful-like, to buy five hundred B. R. T. the clerk said to me, “Say, Mr. Kent, the boss wants to see you.”
I knew the game was up. But I asked him, “What does he want to see me about?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where is he?”
“In his private office. Go in that way.” And he pointed to a door.
I went in. Dolan was sitting at his desk. He swung around and said, “Sit down, Livingston.”
He pointed to a chair. My last hope vanished. I don’t know how he discovered who I was; perhaps from the hotel register.
“What do you want to see me about?” I asked him.
“Listen, kid. I ain’t got nothin’ agin yeh, see? Nothin’ at all. See?”
“No, I don’t see,” I said.
He got up from his swivel chair. He was a whopping big guy. He said to me, “Just come over here, Livingston, will yeh?” and he walked to the door. He opened it and then he pointed to the customers in the big room.
“D’ yeh see them?” he asked.
“See what?”
“Them guys. Take a look at ‘em, kid. There’s three hundred of ‘em! Three hundred suckers! They feed me and my family. See? Three hundred suckers! Then yeh come in, and in two days yeh cop more than I get out of the three hundred in two weeks. That ain’t business, kid – not for me! I ain’t got nothin’ agin yeh. Yer welcome to what ye’ve got. But yeh don’t get any more. There ain’t any here for yeh!”
“Why, I —
“That’s all. I seen yeh come in day before yesterday, and I didn’t like yer looks. On the level, I didn’t. I spotted yeh for a ringer. I called in that jackass there” – he pointed to the guilty clerk – “and asked what you’d done; and when he told me I said to him: ‘I don’t like that guy’s looks. He’s a ringer!’ And that piece of cheese says: ‘Ringer my eye, boss! His name is Horace Kent, and he’s a rah-rah boy playing at being used to long pants. He’s all right!’ Well, I let him have his way. That blankety-blank cost me twenty-eight hundred dollars. I don’t grudge it yeh, my boy. But the safe is locked for yeh.”
“Look here – ” I began.
“You look here, Livingston,” he said. “I’ve heard all about yeh. I make my money coppering suckers’ bets, and yeh don’t belong here. I aim to be a sport and yer welcome to what yeh pried off’n us. But more of that would make me a sucker, now that I know who yeh are. So toddle along, sonny!”
I left Dolan’s place with my twenty-eight hundred dollars’ profit. Teller’s place was in the same block. I had found out that Teller was a very rich man who also ran up a lot of pool rooms. I decided to go to his bucket shop. I wondered whether it would be wise to start moderately and work up to a thousand shares or to begin with a plunge, on the theory that I might not be able to trade more than one day. They get wise mighty quick when they’re losing and I did want to buy one thousand B. R. T. I was sure I could take four or five points out of it. But if they got suspicious or if too many customers were long of that stock they might not let me trade at all. I thought perhaps I’d better scatter my trades at first and begin small.
It wasn’t as big a place as Dolan’s, but the fixtures were nicer and evidently the crowd was of a better class. This suited me down to the ground and I decided to buy my one thousand B. R. T. So I stepped up to the proper window and said to the clerk, “I’d like to buy some B. R. T. What’s the limit?”
“There’s no limit,” said the clerk. “You can buy all you please – if you’ve got the money.”
“Buy fifteen hundred shares,” I says, and took my roll from my pocket while the clerk starts to write the ticket.
Then I saw a red-headed man just shove that clerk away from the counter. He leaned across and said to me, “Say, Livingston, you go back to Dolan’s. We don’t want your business.”
“Wait until I get my ticket,” I said. “I just bought a little B. R. T.”
“You get no ticket here,” he said. By this time other clerks had got behind him and were looking at me. “Don’t ever come here to trade. We don’t take your business. Understand?”
There was no sense in getting mad or trying to argue, so I went back to the hotel, paid my bill and took the first train back to New York. It was tough. I wanted to take back some real money and that Teller wouldn’t let me make even one trade.
I got back to New York, paid Fullerton his five hundred, and started trading again with the St. Louis money. I had good and bad spells, but I was doing better than breaking even. After all, I didn’t have much to unlearn; only to grasp the one fact that there was more to the game of stock speculation than I had considered before I went to Fullerton’s office to trade. I was
