Easton & Allentown stock was the “feature” of the market that week and the next. Ten days after Carey had bought his hundred shares at 94 the stock sold at 106.
The young man went into the office of Treadwell & Co., on the eleventh day. He knew he had made a great deal of money—more than he had ever thought of having at his age—but he did not know what to do now. He heard one man say to another: “Take profits? Not at this price. E. & A. is sure to go to 115.”
Carey figured that if he waited for the stock to sell at 115, he would make nearly a thousand dollars more.
“There is no use of being a blamed hog,” the man continued, with picturesque emphasis, “but where in blazes is the sense of throwing away that much money by selling out too soon? Limit your losses and let your profits run.”
They stood in the corridor of the partitioned office, the crowd of men, all of them customers of Treadwell & Co., excepting the newspaper reporters who had called for their usual daily interview with the famous leader of the stock market. There were two United States Senators; an ex-Congressman; a score of men who had inherited fortunes and were doubling them in the stock market; three or four gray-haired shrewd-faced capitalists whose names appeared many times in the financial pages of newspapers; a baker’s dozen of prominent municipal politicians, a well-known Western railroad president with a ruddy face and a snow-white beard; two famous physicians; the vice-president of a life insurance company; a half score of wholesale merchants and a low-voiced, insignificant little man, with a quiet, almost apologetic look, who seldom spoke and never smiled, but who, next to the colonel himself, was beyond question the heaviest “plunger” in the office.
The colonel came out of his office to go to his brother’s room, where, seated about a long polished table were several directors of the Suburban Trolley Company—men to whom the newspapers always referred not by name but as “prominent insiders.” It was a very important gathering. It involved no less than a final understanding in regards to the great “Trolley pool” whose operations, later on, were to become historical in Wall Street. It was, as one of the speculators outside put it, “a case of show down”—the cash resources available for pool purposes were to be ascertained, each man announcing the proportion of the 100,000 shares for which he was willing to “put up.”
Carey was standing by the door of Wilson Treadwell’s office. He did not feel altogether comfortable, among so many elderly and obviously very rich men. His diffidence was the saving of him for as the colonel passed he paused and said, in a low voice: “Got your stock yet?”
The customers in the corridor, men who, by the colonel’s advice, were “carrying” from 500 to 10,000 shares each of Easton & Allentown, leaned forward eagerly. All were men who north of Wall Street would not have stooped to listen to others’ conversations if their lives depended on it. In a broker’s office, when the leader of the stock market was speaking, such notions were absurd, almost wicked. Certainly, at that moment, twenty pairs of eyes were looking fixedly at the great leader of the stock market and the young clerk.
The colonel felt this intuitively. He confirmed it with a quick glance of his sharp little eyes. He had not sold all his Easton & Allentown, but was disposing of it just as fast as the market would take it. It was not likely that the stock would go much higher. Wall Street, ever loath to believe well of any stock operator, used to comment sneeringly on the fact that the world heard much about the “Treadwell buying” but never a word about the Treadwell selling.
If the colonel gave a hint to the customers there would be an avalanche of selling orders that would make the price of the stock break sharply, and this would not benefit anyone. He had advised them to buy the stock at 90 and at 95–-it was 105 now. He had more than done his duty. If they did not sell out, in the hope of making more, it was their own lookout.