“I know enough to be long of Gotham Gas. I just bought a thousand shares at 180.” He really had bought a hundred only.
“What on?”
“On information. I got it straight from a director of the company. Look here, Gilmartin, I’m pledged to secrecy. But, for your own benefit, I’ll just tell you to buy all the Gas you possibly can carry. The deal is on. I know that certain papers were signed last night, and they are almost ready to spring it on the public. They haven’t got all the stock they want. When they get it, look out for fireworks.”
Gilmartin did not perceive any resemblance between Freeman’s tips and his own. He said, hesitatingly, as though ashamed of his timidity:
“The stock seems pretty high at 180.”
“You won’t think so when it sells at 250. Gilmartin, I don’t hear this; I don’t think it; I know it!”
“All right; I’m in,” quoth Gilmartin, jovially. He felt a sense of emancipation now that he had made up his mind to resume his speculating. He took every cent of the nine hundred dollars he had made from telling people the same things that Freeman told him now, and bought a hundred Gotham Gas at $185 a share. Also he telegraphed to all his clients to plunge in the stock.
It fluctuated between 184 and 186 for a fortnight. Freeman daily asseverated that “they” were accumulating the stock. But, one fine day, the directors met, agreed that business was bad and having sold out most of their own holdings, decided to reduce the dividend rate from 8 to 6 per cent. Gotham Gas broke seventeen points in ten short minutes. Gilmartin lost all he had. He found it impossible to pay for his advertisements. The telegraph companies refused to accept any more “collect” messages. This deprived Gilmartin of his income as a tipster. Griggs had kept on speculating and had lost all his money and his wife’s in a little deal in Iowa Midland. All that Gilmartin could hope to get from him was an occasional invitation to dinner. Mrs. Gilmartin, after they were dispossessed for non-payment of rent, left her husband and went to live with a sister in Newark who did not like Gilmartin.
His clothes became shabby and his meals irregular. But always in his heart, as abiding as an inventor’s faith in himself, there dwelt the hope that some day, somehow, he would “strike it rich” in the stock market.
One day he borrowed five dollars from a man who had made five thousand in Cosmopolitan Traction. The stock, the man said, had only begun to go up, and Gilmartin believed it and bought five shares in “Percy’s,” his favorite bucket-shop. The stock began to rise slowly but steadily. The next afternoon “Percy’s” was raided, the proprietor having disagreed with the police as to price.