"Why I got a broker to buy me fifty shares on a margin of one per cent. He did it to oblige me. I hadn't any money to put up, but I had done him one or two favors, and he did it out of good nature. As the stock was on the rise, he didn't run much of a risk. Well, I bought at 44 and sold at 45 1-4. So I made fifty dollars over and above the commission. I tell you I felt good when the broker paid me over five ten-dollar bills."
"I should think you would."
"I was afraid I'd spend the money foolishly, so I went right off and bought this ring. I can sell it for what I gave any time."
Conrad's cupidity was greatly excited by this remarkable luck of Fred's.
"That seems an easy way of making money," he said. "Do you think I could try it?"
"Anybody can do it if he's got the money to plank down for a margin."
"I don't think I quite understand."
"Then I'll tell you. You buy fifty shares of stock, costing, say, fifty dollars a share."
"That would be twenty-five hundred dollars."
"Yes, if you bought it right out. But you don't. You give the broker whatever per cent. he requires, say a dollar a share—most of them don't do it so cheap—and he buys the stock on your account. If it goes up one or two points, say to fifty-one or fifty-two, he sells out, and the profit goes to you, deducting twenty-five cents a share which he charges for buying and selling. Besides that, he pays you back your margin."