MARKET MANIPULATION 91 



As bull after bull despaired of a turn in the 

 tide and threw overboard his holdings I added to 

 ours with mathematical faith in my theory but 

 with a spiritual doubt that anguished me. When 

 the market was joyously booming and the top of 

 it nowhere in sight it was my unhappiness to be 

 borrowing, always borrowing the metal that was 

 growing more precious with each passing hour, 

 so when its price was tumbling until the crowd 

 predicted that soon the difference between the 

 gold and the greenback dollar would disappear, 

 it was always my fate to be loaded to the guards 

 with enough of it to keep me from sleep. Our 

 commitments were always greater on the long 

 side of the market, for the courage with which I 

 accumulated large amounts was of a different 

 quality from that which supported me when sell- 

 ing it short. The more gold declined the safer it 

 was to hold for always it was nearing its bottom 

 price of par, beneath which it could not go, but 

 to one who was short there was no fixed top to the 

 market since there was no limit to the possible 



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