102 WALL STREET AND THE WILDS 



agreement for a few days at a quarter per cent, 

 but gold was leaking into the market and the 

 loaning rate was only maintained by my locking 

 up half a million or so more every day, while 

 my associate of the hour was lending every dollar 

 of his. I learned that while keeping the letter 

 of his agreement with me he was violating its 

 spirit by offering other inducements to borrow- 

 ers, such as the loan of money at low rates. I 

 knew, too, that he often loaned more gold than 

 he had, trusting to reborrow such amounts at 

 lower rates after the demand of the morning had 

 been supplied. This was occasionally profitable 

 but dangerous and through this habit of his I 

 was able to square accounts with him. 



One day it happened that while he was wait- 

 ing to reborrow gold that he had overloaned ear- 

 lier in the day the loan rate, instead of going 

 down to an eighth or a sixteenth, rose to three- 

 eighths bid with no gold in sight. Then my 

 quondam friend came to me and benignantly 

 said he could use two hundred thousand gold for 

 me at my full rate of a quarter per cent a day. 



