“I’m very glad to meet Mr. Carey,” said Wilson Treadwell. The firm had some very youthful customers; but their means were in inverse ratio to their years.
“I think,” said the colonel, “that we had better buy some Easton & Allentown for him.” He was smiling; he generally did. Moreover, he was thinking of his brother’s mistaken impression of the new customer.
“That is a good idea,” assented Wilson. “You ought to put in your order at once. The stock is going up very fast, Mr. Carey.”
“Well, young man, give him your margin and let him buy you as much as he thinks best,” said the colonel.
“Five thousand shares?” suggested Wilson Treadwell.
Colonel Treadwell chuckled. “Five thousand? A paltry five?”
“Well, fifty thousand if he wants them, and you guarantee his account,” said his brother with a smile.
“I guess,” said the leader of the stock market, slowly, “that you had better begin with one hundred shares.”
Then Wilson, who knew his brother thoroughly, said “Oh!” and smiled and gave an order to a clerk to buy one hundred shares of Easton & Allentown Railroad stock at the “market” or prevailing price, for Mr. Carey, and took the boy’s two hundred and ten dollars with the utmost gravity. The smallest Stock Exchange house would not accept such a pitiful account. Treadwell & Co. being the largest, would and did.
The colonel shook hands with young Carey, whose father had once edited a country newspaper, but who had never been an intimate friend, told him to “Come again, any time,” and went back to his accomplices.