204 WALL STREET AND THE WILDS 



machinery. But as Punch and Judy shows seem 

 ever real even to the child who has watched the 

 manipulator, so we larger children never become 

 immune to the story of the tape even when it has 

 been written by ourselves. Smith declared and I 

 agreed with him that the market was too strong 

 to risk remaining short of stock that had to be 

 borrowed in the market. No sooner had he cov- 

 ered these excess sales at a heavy loss than the 

 break came and the whole operation was closed at 

 a profit of some three hundred thousand dollars. 



Smith was indignant at the Stockwell hold-up, 

 but said he was glad I hadn't told him, since the 

 President of the Pacific Mail was quite tricky 

 enough to put his best friend in a hole. He sent 

 for Stockwell and denounced him roundly, get- 

 ting only the merry "Ha, ha!" in reply. I never 

 set foot on my $35,000 purchase, but later trans- 

 ferred it to Smith, who thought he might work 

 something like the purchase price out of it for 

 me, but two thousand dollars is all that ever came 

 back to me for it. 



A hundred thousand dollars doesn't go far in^ 



