140 WALL STREET AND THE WILDS 



the price in the market being 130 per cent we 

 received a currency check for $1,300,000. Then 

 if the market price rose to say 135 per cent a boy 

 from our office would call upon the broker to 

 whom we had loaned the gold and say : 



"Please make Marquand and Dimock's gold 

 at the market," upon which a check would be 

 given him for $50,000, making the loan at 135 

 per cent. There were many of these calls to be 

 made, though seldom for so large an amount, and 

 occasionally it happened that after a boy had 

 made twenty such calls and returned to the office 

 with a score of checks footing up one or two hun- 

 dred thousand dollars the market had again ad- 

 vanced so that he had to again make the rounds. 



Perhaps never before had so much money been 

 so quickly made by one so young and that I lost 

 all proper sense of its value was inevitable. 

 That I was fated to lose it fits into my own phi- 

 losophy, but the manner and the overwhelming- 

 ness of its going staggers my comprehension to- 

 day. I laid the foundation of the trouble to 

 come just after a period of our greatest success. 



