84 WALL STREET AND THE WILDS 



only did I sell for short turns on the advancing 

 waves, but as the tide rose high and the last bear 

 crawled under cover while bulls pawed the earth 

 I sold an extra million or so, with faith in my 

 theory but with physical distress that made my 

 knees tremble. 



But as the only large borrower of gold in a 

 market where every other man was anxious to 

 lend it, since the alternative was borrowing 

 money to carry it and money was always scarce 

 as hen's teeth at such times, I received a high rate 

 of interest for the cash advanced against the gold 

 borrowed. Sometimes I received a bonus in ad- 

 dition to interest, even as large as one quarter per 

 cent, which meant $2,500 for carrying a million 

 gold over night, or at the rate of nearly one hun- 

 dred per cent per annum. 



The working of the system I established left 

 me, near the culmination of every extended rise, 

 distressfully burdened with great commitments 

 to deliver gold in a market so rampant that it 

 seemed silly to think it could ever again decline. 

 The Gold Exchange was jubilant, with every 



