44 WALL STREET AND THE WILDS 



vertisements, and an indemnity bond for twice 

 the par value of the stock, or ten thousand dollars. 

 In the end, we recovered the hundred and fiftv 

 dollars' worth of stock after a moderate expendi- 

 ture of cash, but at a cost in anxiety which I have 

 never been able to measure. 



Business came in very slowly, but I soon was 

 able to fill out a check with a steady hand, and 

 before long had acquired some knowledge of the 

 probable purchasers of certain classes of securi- 

 ties. One trivial incident made a red letter day 

 for me. A certain man who was as much distin- 

 guished for his parsimony as for his great wealth, 

 who spent less for his living in a year than his 

 heirs squander in Newport in a week, brought 

 us a hundred-dollar bond to sell at a limit of 

 ninety-seven. My employer did not like the 

 man, and told me that if his price for the bond 

 was ninety-seven it was probably worth about 

 ninety-six. He added that I could have all 

 I could make out of it, but advised me not to run 

 my legs off in the effort to sell it. 



The bond was of a road in which I knew that 



