BUSINESS OR GAMBLING 81 



trouble abroad with panic at home, or some wild 

 expansion of an already highly diluted currency, 

 sent skyward the price of gold, holding it for days 

 with the look of Gibraltar, even while it was tot- 

 tering to its fall. 



But while the pendulum of the gold tide beat 

 slowly, the rise and fall of the waves was like the 

 swinging balance of a watch. The unit of trans- 

 actions on the Gold Exchange was five thousand 

 dollars in gold and the prices varied by one- 

 eighth of one per cent. On an active day in the 

 market, even though gold might close at the price 

 at which it opened, the fluctuations, counting by 

 eighths, ran high in the hundreds and sometimes 

 invaded the thousands. What was the use of 

 customers with their occasional commissions by 

 the day or the week, when commissions galore 

 hung before my eyes in every change in the mar- 

 ket, whether up or down? I made of myself a 

 nerveless machine and for nearly all the three 

 hundred minutes of each daily session stood be- 

 side the curved rail that enclosed the Gold Room 

 pit buying Hve thousand gold at every eighth 



