II.
Time-passed. As it had happened with his predecessor, so did it happen now with Sally. He began by speculating, wildly at first, more carefully later on. He met with sundry reverses, but he also made some very lucky turns indeed, and he was “ahead of the game” by a very fair amount—certainly a sum far greater than any plodding clerk could save in five years, greater than many an industrious mechanic saves in his entire life. From the bucket-shops he went to the Consolidated Exchange. Then he asked Jacobs and the other two-dollar brokers to let him deal in a small way with them, which they did out of personal liking for him, until he had three separate accounts and could “swing a line” of several hundred shares. He became neither more nor less than 10,000 other human beings in Wall Street—moved by the same impulses, actuated by the same feelings, experiencing the same emotions, having the same thoughts and the same views of what they are pleased to call their “business.”
At last the blow fell which Sally had so long dreaded—he was “promoted” to a clerkship in Tracy & Middleton’s office. The firm meant to reward him for his devotion to his work, for his brightness and quickness. From $15 a week they raised his salary to $25, which they considered quite generous, especially in view of his youth, and that he had started three years before with $8. He was only twenty now. But Sally, knowing it meant the abandonment of his lucrative perquisites as telephone “boy,” bemoaned his undeserved fate.
He took the money he had made to Mr. Tracy and told him an interesting story of a rich aunt and a legacy, and asked him to let him open an account in the office. Tracy congratulated his young clerk, took the $6,500, and thereafter Sally was both an employee and a customer of Tracy & Middleton.
Addicted to sharp practices though Mr. Tracy was and loving commissions as he did, he nevertheless sought to curb Sally’s youthful propensity for “plunging,” which was as near being kind as it was possible for a stock-broker to be. But the money had “come easy.” That is why fortunes won by stock gamblers are lost with apparent recklessness or stupidity. Sally speculated with varying success, running up his winnings to $10,000, and seeing them dwindle later to $6,000. But in addition to becoming an inveterate speculator, he gained much valuable experience. And when he had learned the tricks of the trade he was taken from the ledgers and turned loose in the customers’ room, to take the latter’s orders and keep them in good humor and tell them the current stories, and give them impressively whispered “tips,” and “put them into” various “deals” of the firm, and see that they traded as often as possible, which meant commissions for the firm. He became friendly and even familiar with Tracy & Middleton’s clients, among whom were some very wealthy men, for a stock-broker’s office is a democratic place. Men who would not have dreamed of taking their Wall Street acquaintances to their homes or to their clubs for a million reasons, all but called each other by their first names there.
He really was a bright, amiable fellow, very obliging—he was paid for it by the firm—and he made the most of his opportunities. The customers grew to like him exceedingly well, and to think with respect of his judgment, market-wise. One day W. Basil Thornton, one of the wealthiest and boldest customers of the firm, complained of the difficulty of “beating the game” with the heavy handicap of the large brokerage commission.
Jestingly, yet hoping to be taken seriously, Sally said: “Join the New York Stock Exchange or buy me a seat, and form the firm of Thornton & Hayward. Just think, Colonel, we would have your trade, and you could bring some friends, and I could bring mine, and I think many of these”—pointing to Tracy & Middleton’s customers—“would come over to us. They all think a lot,” diplomatically, “of your opinions on the market.”
Thornton was favorably impressed with the idea, and Sally saw it. From that moment on he worked hard to gain the Colonel’s confidence. It was he who gave Thornton the first hint of Tracy & Middleton’s condition, which led to the withdrawal of Thornton’s account—and his own—from the office. It was a violation of confidence and of business ethics, but Thornton was very grateful when, two months later, Tracy & Middleton failed, under circumstances which were far from creditable, and which were discussed at great length by the Street. He showed his gratitude by adding a round sum to Sally’s $11,500, and Willis N. Hayward became a member of the New York Stock Exchange. Shortly afterward the firm of Thornton & Hayward, Bankers and Brokers, was formed. Sally, then in his twenty-fifth year, had become a seasoned Wall Street man.