42 WALL STREET AND THE WILDS 



the way all boys think, and a messenger from 

 26 Broadway, or the White House, is equally 

 ready to expound "our" policy. The shares 

 were bought at three dollars each, deliverable on 

 the following day. As my employer was to be 

 absent, he left me with a check drawn to my order 

 with the amount left blank. It was to be the first 

 check I had ever filled out, and my excitement 

 was great. When a boy from the broker's firm 

 drifted in with an envelope addressed to my em- 

 ployer I wondered at his frivolous demeanor 

 in the presence of important transactions. I 

 opened the envelope and took from it a bill for 

 $156.25. I had written the amount, in prepara- 

 tion for the great event, on a hundred pieces of 

 blank paper, and I succeeded in getting it on the 

 check without an error. Then I turned the pa- 

 per over and made it payable to the broker's firm, 

 appending a signature that in illegibility would 

 have been a credit to the first Napoleon. 



All had gone well and my complacency was un- 

 disturbed until asked for the certificate of the 

 stock for which I had paid. I knew nothing of 



