“She’s the nicest little woman that ever lived. Whatever is mine, is hers; and what’s hers is her own. Ha! Ha! But,” becoming nicely serious, “all that I’ll make out of the stock market I’m going to put away for her, in her name. She can take better care of it than I; and, besides, she’s entitled to it, anyhow, for being so nice to me.”
That is how he told what a good husband he was. He felt so pleased over it, that he went on, sincerely regretful: “She’s visiting friends in Pennsylvania or I’d ask you to dine with us.” And they went to a fashionable restaurant together.
Day after day Gilmartin thought persistently that Maiden Lane was too far from Wall Street. There came a week in which he could have made four very handsome “turns” had he but been in the brokers’ office. He was out on business for his firm and when he returned the opportunity had gone, leaving behind it vivid visions of what might have been; also the conviction that time, tide and the ticker wait for no man. Instead of buying and selling quinine and balsams and essential oils for Maxwell & Kip, drug brokers and importers, he decided to make the buying and selling of stocks and bonds his exclusive business. The hours were easy; the profits would be great. He would make enough to live on. He would not let the Street take away what it had given. That was the great secret: to know when to quit! He would be content with a moderate amount, wisely invested in gilt-edged bonds. And then he would bid the Street good-by forever.
Force of long business custom and the indefinable fear of new ventures for a time fought successfully his increasing ticker-fever. But one day his brokers wished to speak to him, to urge him to sell out his entire holdings, having been advised of an epoch-making resolution by Congress. They had received the news in advance from a Washington customer. Other brokers had important connections in the Capital and therefore there was no time to lose. They dared not assume the responsibility of selling him out without his permission. Five minutes—five eternities!—passed before they could talk by telephone with him; and when he gave his order to sell, the market had broken five or six points. The news was “out.” The news-agencies’ slips were in the brokers’ offices and half of Wall Street knew. Instead of being among the first ten sellers Gilmartin was among the second hundred.
II.
The clerks gave him a farewell dinner. All were there, even the head office-boy to whom the two-dollar subscription was no light matter. The man who probably would succeed Gilmartin as manager, Jenkins, acted as toastmaster. He made a witty speech which ended with a neatly turned compliment. Moreover, he seemed sincerely sorry to bid good-by to the man whose departure meant promotion—which was the nicest compliment of all. And the other clerks—old Williamson, long since ambition-proof; and young Hardy, bitten ceaselessly by it; and middle-aged Jameson, who knew he could run the business much better than Gilmartin; and Baldwin, who never thought of business in or out of the office—all told him how good he had been and related corroborative anecdotes that made him blush and the others cheer; and how sorry they were he would no longer be with them, but how glad he was going to do so much better by himself; and they hoped he would not “cut” them when he met them after he had become a great millionaire. And Gilmartin felt his heart grow soft and feelings not all of happiness came over him. Danny, the dean of the office boys, whose surname was known only to the cashier, rose and said, in the tones of one speaking of a dear departed friend: “He was the best man in the place. He always was all right.” Everybody laughed; whereupon Danny went on, with a defiant glare at the others: “I’d work for him for nothin’ if he’d want me, instead of gettin’ ten a week from anyone else.” And when they laughed the harder at this he said, stoutly: “Yes, I would!” His eyes filled with tears at their incredulity, which he feared might be shared by Mr. Gilmartin. But the toastmaster rose very gravely and said: “What’s the matter with Danny?” And all shouted in unison: “He’s all right!” with a cordiality so heartfelt that Danny smiled and sat down, blushing happily. And crusty Jameson, who knew he could run the business so much better than Gilmartin, stood up—he was the last speaker—and began: “In the ten years I’ve worked with Gilmartin, we’ve had our differences and—well—I—well—er—oh, DAMN IT!” and walked quickly to the head of the table and shook hands violently with Gilmartin for fully a minute, while all the others looked on in silence.
Gilmartin had been eager to go to Wall Street. But this leave-taking made him sad. The old Gilmartin who had worked with these men was no more and the new Gilmartin felt sorry. He had never stopped to think how much they cared for him nor indeed how very much he cared for them. He told them, very simply, he did not expect ever again to spend such pleasant years anywhere as at the old office; and as for his spells of ill-temper—oh, yes, they needn’t shake their heads; he knew he often was irritable—he had meant well and trusted they would forgive him. If he had his life to live over again he would try really to deserve all that they had said of him on this evening. And he was very, very sorry to leave them. “Very sorry, boys; very sorry. Very sorry!” he finished lamely, with a wistful smile. He shook hands with each man—a strong grip as though he were about to go on a journey from which he might never return—and in his heart of hearts there was a new doubt of the wisdom of going to Wall Street. But it was too late to draw back.
They escorted him to his house. They wished to be with him to the last possible minute.
III.
Everybody in the drug trade seemed to think that Gilmartin was on the high road to Fortune. Those old business acquaintances and former competitors whom he happened to meet in the streetcars or in theatre lobbies always spoke to him as to a millionaire-to-be, in what they imagined was correct Wall Street jargon, to show him that they too knew something of the great game. But their efforts made him smile with a sense of superiority, at the same time that their admiration for his cleverness and their good-natured envy for his luck made his soul thrill joyously. Among his new friends in Wall Street also he found much to enjoy. The other customers—some of them very wealthy men—listened to his views regarding the market as attentively as he, later, felt it his polite duty to listen to theirs. The brokers themselves treated him as a “good fellow.” They cajoled him into trading often—every one-hundred shares he bought or sold meant $12.50 to them—and when he won, they praised his unerring discernment. When he lost they soothed him by scolding him for his recklessness—just as a mother will treat her three-years-old’s fall as a great joke in order to deceive the child into laughing at its misfortune. It was an average office with an average clientele.