Our thoughts turned to the ocean. With my wife I searched the Jersey coast from Seabright down to Asbury Park. Farther than that we did not want to go on account of the length of the trip to and from the city.
On our first visit we cut out every place except Monmouth Beach and Seabright, and on the second took a lease of the Brent Wood Cottage at Monmouth Beach. It was delightfully situated, directly on the beach, a spacious and comfortably furnished house with a large stable.
The house was in good repair, except that it needed painting. As I had taken the lease for two seasons and the owner would do nothing, I had it painted at my expense. We also did some redecorating in some of the rooms, and when the work was finished had a very attractive place.
The grand sail down the harbor and across the lower bay to the Highlands was a source of daily delight to me. I had my own large and nicely furnished stateroom with its private deck, rented by the season, and we were very glad that we missed taking the place at Great Neck.
On the first and second stories there were wide piazzas running around the house, and for hours at a time with my marine glasses at hand to look at passing steamers, I sat and enjoyed, what has always been a fascination to me, watching the magnificent surf crashing and dashing on the beach below. The house was protected by a formidable bulkhead, but it was no uncommon occurrence to have great showers of spray come dashing over it.
To watch the moon rise out of the sea, to listen to the roaring of those ceaseless waves, the last thing before I slept at night and the first thing on awakening in the morning, had for me a charm unequalled by anything in Nature's wonders. And those September storms, particularly severe that year, awe-inspiring in their mighty grandeur.
Oh! there is nothing like the ocean.
On July first, the two years having expired, the commodity in which we dealt again went on the free list. Naturally, stocks in this country had been reduced to a very low point. With four cents per pound duty removed, no one wanted any of the old stock, which had paid the duty, on hand. Every consumer and dealer in the country was bare of supplies and a very active demand from all sources set in immediately.
When we abandoned the brokerage business to become importers and dealers, our relations with our London friends changed. We bought of them all that we imported and they sold to no other American firm. If they bought in this market, their orders came to us. With their movements we worked in sympathy. If they advanced the price in London we did the same in New York and vice-versa. We were in constant cable communication, informing each other from hour to hour of the market movements.
There were times, however, when they entered into market campaigns that extended over a long period. In these we did not fully participate. Our market was too narrow to permit of it, and it involved the locking up of too much capital.