Edwin Lefevre

“ Sally formed a new firm immediately—Hayward & Co.—with his cashier as partner.
IV. All mundane things have an end, even bull markets and bear markets. The bull market saw Hayward & Co. doing a good business, as did everybody else in Wall Street. It ended, and the firm’s customers, after a few bad “slumps” in prices, were admonished to turn bears in order to recoup their losses. Bears believe prices are too high and should go lower; bulls, optimists, believe the opposite. The public can’t sell stocks “short” any more than the average man is left-handed. ”

“ Jestingly, yet hoping to be taken seriously, Sally said: “Join the New York Stock Exchange or buy me a seat, and form the firm of Thornton & Hayward. Just think, Colonel, we would have your trade, and you could bring some friends, and I could bring mine, and I think many of these”—pointing to Tracy & Middleton’s customers—“would come over to us. They all think a lot,” diplomatically, “of your opinions on the market.” ”

“ The most prosperous period in the industrial and commercial history of the United States begot an epidemic of speculative madness such as was never before known, and probably never again will be. Everybody had money in abundance, and the desire for speculation in superabundance. ”

“ Sally now understood how he managed it on a salary of $12 a week.
He did not say anything to the firm that day, nor any other day. And he didn’t say anything to Jacobs in return, but, by Willie’s sage advice, contented himself with merely withholding all orders from that oleaginous personage, until Mr. Jacobs was moved to remonstrate. And Sally, who had learned a great deal in a week under Willie’s tuition, answered curtly: “Business is very bad; the firm is doing hardly anything.”
“But Watson told me,” said Jacobs, angrily, “that he was doing a great deal of business for Tracy & Middleton. ”

“ Any member who, in order to increase his business, charges an outsider or another member less than exactly the prescribed amount for buying or selling stocks, is liable to severe penalties. The offer of a two-dollar broker to give a telephone-boy fifty cents for each order of 100 shares secured was obviously a violation of the rule. ”

“ But he began to speculate for himself, and all reputable commission men will tell you, with varying degrees of emphasis, that this not only “ties up” the firm’s money, but that no man can “trade”—speculate—on his own hook and at the same time do justice to his customers.
Thornton was a rich man, and protected his own speculations more than amply. He noticed the development of his young partner’s gambling proclivities, and remonstrated with him—in a kindly, paternal sort of way.
Sally vowed he would stop. ”

“ The rapid development of his character was due exclusively to the “forcing” power of the atmosphere which surrounded him.
“You must be crazy,” said Jacobs, angrily. “Why, I never get much more than a thousand shares a week from Tracy & Middleton, and usually less. Say, you ought to be on the floor. You are wasting your talent in the telephone business, you are. Let’s swap places, you and I.”
“According to our books,” said Sally to the irate broker, having been duly coached by Mr. William Simpson, “the last week you did business for us you did 3,800 shares, and received $76.” ”

“ When, after three years, the firm expired by limitation, Colonel Thornton withdrew. He had had enough of Hayward’s plunging. To be sure, Sally had become a shrewd “trader,” and he had made $75,000 during the big bull boom; but he was at heart a “trader,” which is to say, a mere gambler in stocks, and not a desirable commission man.
But Sally, flushed with success on the bull side, did not worry when Thornton refused to continue the partnership. The slogan was “Buy A. O. T. It’s sure to go up!” the initial standing for Any Old Thing! ”

“ What he did was to distribute buying orders for 10,000 shares in lots of 500. Brokers now accepted his orders, for they were not so large as to be dangerous. And the stock rose to 1223⁄4. A few shorts were frightened. He might win out after all; he might make Pike’s Peak. He began to bid up the stock. He even bought “cash” stock, that is, stock for which he paid cash, had to pay cash outright, receiving the certificates forthwith, presumably to hand over to some investor of millions. Everybody on the “floor” was talking about Hayward. The entire market had risen in sympathy with Sugar. ”