“You’ve got him, Dan. You’ve got him,” exultantly.
“I’m going to cover my 20,000 shares with the first half of the order and sell the rest the best I can.”
“Man alive, this is your chance! Don’t you see you’ve got him? Smilie of the Eastern National Bank tells me there isn’t a bank in the city will lend Greener money, and he needs it badly to pay the last $10,000,000 to the Indian Pacific bondholders. He’s bit off more than he can chew, damn ‘im!”
“Well, Bill, we’ll treat Mr. Greener as we do any other customer,” said Dittenhoeffer.
“But—” began Smith, with undisguised consternation; he was an honest man, when away from the Street.
“Oh, I’ll get him yet. This won’t save him. I’ll get him yet,” with a confident smile.
It would have been very easy for him to take advantage of Greener’s order to make a fortune. He was short 20,000 shares which he had put out at an average price of 93. He could have taken Greener’s block of 50,000 shares and hurled it bodily at the market. Not even a gilt-edge stock could withstand the impact of such a fearful blow, and the price of Federal Telegraph doubtless would have broken 15 points or more, and he could easily have taken in his shorts at 75 or possibly even at 70–-which would have meant a profit of a half-million of dollars—and a loss of a much needed million to his arch-foe, Greener. And if he allowed his partner to whisper in strict confidence to some friend how Dan was selling out a big line of Telegraph for Greener the “Room” would have gone wild and everybody would have hastened to sell and the decline would have gone so much further as to cripple the little Napoleon possibly beyond all hope of recovery. Had Greener made the most colossal mistake of his life in giving the order to his enemy?
Dan went to the Federal Telegraph post where a score of madmen were shouting at the top of their voices the prices they were willing to pay or to accept for varying amounts of the stock. He gave to twenty brokers orders to sell 1,000 shares each at the best obtainable price and he himself, through another man took an equal amount. On the next day he in person sold 20,000 shares and on the third day the last 10,000 shares of Greener’s order. This selling, the Street thought, was for his own account. It was all short stock; that is, his colleagues thought he was selling stock he didn’t own, trusting later on to buy it back cheaply. Such selling never has the depressing effect of “long” stock because it is obvious that the short seller must sooner or later buy the stock in, insuring a future demand, which should exert a lifting influence on prices; for
“He who sells what isn’t his’n
Must buy it back or go to pris’n.”