FIRST DAYS IN WALL STREET 55 



suggestions of possible purchasers of others. 



One broker was polite and promising, and I 

 became quite confidential with him. Others were 

 curt, not to say cruel, and told me to send my 

 principal to them, and that they would trade with 

 him. When I made my report to the merchant 

 I learned that the polite broker with whom I had 

 been too confidential had already called upon him 

 to solicit his business. I blushed to the soles of 

 my feet with shame at the thought of the easy 

 game I had been and the confidences I had 

 yielded up. 



"Don't worry about that," said the merchant, 

 "I told your broker friend that getting the con- 

 fidence of a boy and betraying it wasn't the best 

 way to secure our business." Then he handed 

 me a letter of introduction to the head of another 

 house whose holdings of scrip were large, and I 

 left him with another name written large in my 

 pantheon. 



Little as there was to do, it became necessary 

 for me to be always on hand at the office during 

 business hours, and Mr. Marquand employed a 



