On the very next day I sold two thousand shares at the opening and two thousand shares just before the close, and the stock broke to 102.
Haley, the manager of Harding Brothers’ Palm Beach Branch, was waiting for Mrs. Livingston to call there on the third morning. She usually strolled in about eleven to see how things were, if I was doing anything.
Haley took her aside and said, “Mrs. Livingston, if you want me to carry that hundred shares of Borneo Tin for you you will have to give me more margin.”
“But I haven’t any more,” she told him.
“I can transfer it to your regular account,” he said.
“No,” she objected, “because that way L.L. would learn about it.”
“But the account already shows a loss of—” he began.
“But I told you distinctly I didn’t want to lose more than the five hundred dollars. I didn’t even want to lose that,” she said.
“I know, Mrs. Livingston, but I didn’t want to sell it without consulting you, and now unless you authorise me to hold it I’ll have to let it go.”
“But it did so nicely the day I bought it,” she said, “that I didn’t believe it would act this way so soon. Did you?”