WAR TIME AND GOLD 67 



I could feel the gloom in the air and see the 

 hopelessness of the situation until, wondering 

 that I had hesitated for a moment, I again 

 bought. Once more the market turned and 

 again plunged downward. More than half my 

 capital had gone,- and the rest was slowly melting 

 away as the price of gold continued to decline. 

 I studied the problem by day and dreamed of it 

 at night. There came to my mind the skeleton 

 of a theory involving the apothegm, "In specula- 

 tion the majority are always wrong," and I de- 

 termined to test it. I watched without comment 

 the sickening decline until again came the broker's 

 advice to sell out and go short, for now, surely 

 the bottom had dropped out. 



Bead, the broker, was electrified by my order, 

 "Do not sell, but buy five thousand gold!" and I 

 had to resist his appeals not to plunge to certain 

 destruction. Later he congratulated me on my 

 bull luck in going long of gold just when the best 

 people in the street were selling. He had fre- 

 quent occasion thereafter to be shocked by my 

 orders for they were invariably contrary to his 



