V.
One day, in New Street, he overheard a very well known broker tell another that Mr. Sharpe was “going to move up Pennsylvania Central right away.” The over-hearing of the conversation was a bit of rare good luck that raised Gilmartin from his sodden apathy and made him hasten to his brother-in-law who kept a grocery store in Brooklyn. He implored Griggs to go to a broker and buy as much Pennsylvania Central as he could—that is, if he wished to live in luxury the rest of his life. Sam Sharpe was going to put it up. Also, he borrowed ten dollars.
Griggs was tempted. He debated with himself many hours, and at length yielded with misgivings. He took his savings and bought one hundred shares of Pennsylvania Central at 64 and began to neglect his business in order to study the financial pages of the newspapers. Little by little Gilmartin’s whisper set in motion within him the wheels of a ticker that printed on his day-dreams the mark of the dollar. His wife, seeing him preoccupied, thought business was bad; but Griggs denied it, confirming her worst fears. Finally, he had a telephone put in his little shop, to be able to talk to his brokers.
Gilmartin, with the ten dollars he had borrowed, promptly bought ten shares in a bucket shop at 63⅞; the stock promptly went to 62⅞; he was promptly “wiped”; and the stock promptly went back to 64½.
On the next day a fellow-customer of the Gilmartin of old days invited him to have a drink. Gilmartin resented the man’s evident prosperity. He felt indignant at the ability of the other to buy hundreds of shares. But the liquor soothed him, and in a burst of mild remorse he told Smithers, after an apprehensive look about him as if he feared someone might overhear: “I’ll tell you something, on the dead q. t., for your own benefit.”
“Fire away!”
“Pa. Cent. is going ‘way up.”
“Yes?” said Smithers, calmly.
“Yes; it will cross par sure.”
“Umph!” between munches of a pretzel.