WAR TIME AND GOLD 69 



the fifty thousand gold I had bought that the five 

 thousand profit it showed might pay the four 

 thousand bet and leave me one thousand to the 

 good, on which I had figured in making the trans- 

 action. Beside me was M. M. Broadwell, a 

 sturdy Westerner of Kansas City whom all gold 

 dealers of that day will remember. He had a 

 big, patriarchal beard, and a booming voice which 

 he loved to let out in excited times in his favor- 

 ite bid for a hundred thousand gold, beside 

 which the bid for a million for anything to-day 

 would be like the babbling of a child. As I stood 

 with hand uplifted, the big voice boomed its war 

 cry, 



"I'll give fifty for a hundred thousand!" 



I smote him on the back with a yell, 



"Sold!" 



The bid was a bluff, the crowd knew it; 

 my sale knocked the pins from under the market 

 and it crumbled. The natural culmination of the 

 rise had come, a tumble of near ten points was 

 due, and it came in the next few days. 



When I started to round up my deal I had 



