Next day Jack happened to be over at Hartz’s office on business for his firm when a seedy-looking old man, with a dissipated and dejected aspect, shuffled into the place.
“I want to see Mr. Hartz,” he said in a trembling voice.
“Mr. Hartz is engaged,” replied the clerk, turning away.
Just then Hartz came out of his private room, and the visitor motioned to him in an eager sort of way.
“Well,” said the broker, coldly, as he stepped up to the railing, “your account is closed, Mr. Tuggs. We sent you a notice and, as you didn’t respond, had to close you out at twenty-two, with a balance against you. Jenkins,” addressing his head bookkeeper, “prepare a statement of Mr. Tuggs’ account and hand it to me with notice of sale. Sit down, Mr. Tuggs. Statement ready presently,” and Mr. Hartz re-entered his sanctum, while the customer, with a gesture of despair, tottered over to the indicator and examined it with hungry eyes.
Jack had overheard it all, and he watched this old derelict of Wall Street with sympathetic eyes.
“Who is he?” he inquired of the clerk who had brought him the envelope he was to take back to Atherton’s.
“Whom do you mean? Oh, Tuggs?” and the dapper clerk laughed sneeringly. “He’s got to be a regular nuisance round here, and we’re trying to get rid of him. He was rich once—a retired manufacturer, I think, who caught the Wall Street fever. Hartz has always been his broker, and I guess has sheared him down to his last dollar. At any rate, he used to shovel the dough in at a comfortable rate, but somehow or another he was nearly always on the wrong side of the market, and of late his investments haven’t amounted to shucks. Besides, he’s taken to drinking and has grown so disreputable in his looks that the boss doesn’t care to have him around any more. This last deal of his was two hundred shares of Lebanon and Jericho, which he bought on a ten-per-cent margin, as usual, for a rise, and I guess it took his last dollar. It’s fair stock, but fluctuates a good deal. After he bought it, it went to thirty-six, when he should have sold out. But he didn’t; expected it would go higher, of course, like all the lambs. Then it began to drop, and ever since it’s been below thirty-two he’s been on the anxious seat,” with a grin. “He’d drop in a dozen times a day and ask questions about it. He gave us all a pain; so I guess Hartz thought it was time to choke him off.”
“He couldn’t close him out unless the stock went down ten per cent,” said Jack.
“Of course not,” replied the clerk; “but it got pretty close to the danger mark day before yesterday, and we sent him a demand for more margin.”