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"Yes, wit-ness-es," mimicked Gilmartin, scornfully, "I all but had to get on my knees to make you buy it. And I told you when to sell it, too. The information came to me straight from headquarters and you got the use of it, and now the least you can do is to give me twenty-five hundred dollars." In the end he accepted eight hundred dollars. He told mutual friends that Smithers had cheated him.
Gilmartin made them give him a good percentage. He had no trouble with his brother-in-law. Gilmartin told him it was an inviolable Wall Street custom and so Griggs paid, with an air of much experience in such matters. Freeman was more or less grateful. But Smithers met Gilmartin, and full of his good luck repeated what he had told a dozen men within the hour: "I did a dandy stroke the other day.
And Gilmartin felt his heart grow soft and feelings not all of happiness came over him. Danny, the dean of the office boys, whose surname was known only to the cashier, rose and said, in the tones of one speaking of a dear departed friend: "He was the best man in the place. He always was all right."
Gilmartin lingered about New Street, talking with other customers of the raided bucket shop, discussing whether or not it was a "put up job" of old Percy himself, who, it was known, had been losing money to the crowd for weeks past. One by one the victims went away and at length Gilmartin left the ticker district.
Indeed, in some cases his interest was so poignant and his advice so frequent he would speak of our deal that the lucky winner gave him a small share of his spoils, which Gilmartin accepted without hesitation he was beyond pride-wounding by now and promptly used to back some miniature deal of his own on the Consolidated Exchange or even in "Percy's" a dingy little bucket shop, where they took orders for two shares of stock on a margin of 1 per cent; that is, where a man could bet as little as two dollars.
But, one fine day, the directors met, agreed that business was bad, and having sold out most of their own holdings, decided to reduce the dividend rate from 8 to 6 per cent. Gotham Gas broke seventeen points in ten short minutes. Gilmartin lost all he had. He found it impossible to pay for his advertisements. The telegraph companies refused to accept any more "collect" messages.
Every morning Gilmartin telegraphed to scores of people at their expense to sell, and to scores of others to buy the same stocks. And he claimed his commissions from the winners. Little by little his savings grew; and with them grew his desire to speculate on his own account. It made him irritable not to gamble. He met Freeman one day in one of his dissatisfied moods.
It wasn't Gilmartin's fault, but Rossiter's bad luck. At length, failing to get enough clients in the ticker district itself, Gilmartin was forced to advertise in an afternoon paper, six times a week, and in the Sunday edition of one of the leading morning dailies. They ran like this: WE MAKE MONEY for our Investors by the best system ever devised. Deal with genuine experts.
And the other clerks old Williamson, long since ambition-proof; and young Hardy, bitten ceaselessly by it; and middle-aged Jameson, who knew he could run the business much better than Gilmartin; and Baldwin, who never thought of business in or out of the office all told him how good he had been and related corroborative anecdotes that made him blush and the others cheer; and how sorry they were he would no longer be with them, but how glad he was going to do so much better by himself; and they hoped he would not "cut" them when he met them after he had become a great millionaire.
Pa. Cent. looked to me like higher prices and I bought a wad of it. I've cleaned up a tidy sum," and he looked proud of his own penetration. He really had forgotten that it was Gilmartin who had given him the tip.
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