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BY

XXXV

Y THIS time the boys down on the Street had got to supposing that I was more or less of a back number.

"Uncle Daniel," they said, “is a toothless old dog. He will growl, but his bite doesn't amount to much any more. From now on he's no good except to poke around the Street, his hands behind his back, and look wise."

But I showed them that I wasn't dead and done for just yet. There was still some fire in my brains. I had more tricks and dodges to show them. As Marsden, for one, found out. Billy Marsden had been one of my agents in Erie speckilations. He had made a nice sum of money for himself out of those deals. But I didn't intend that he should keep it. He had made that money by hanging onto my coat tails, so to speak. From which it really belonged to me more than it did to him. So I set about to get it. I got Marsden to head a buying movement in Erie. I went in with him in the deal. We bought well-nigh every share that was loose in the New York market. Then, whilst Marsden was still buying, I, all unbeknownst to him, began to

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unload my holdings at the nice figure the stock was then reaching. Marsden took my offerings of stock, until I had saddled so much of it onto him that his money began to give out. Then he got suspicious. He began to accuse me of playing fast and loose with him.

"Drew," said he, "some one is doing me dirt. You and I are now the only holders of loose stock in the market; and still it's being offered to me in large blocks. You snake-in-the-grass, I'll lay that it's you." I tried to tell him that it wasn't; that he was barking up the wrong tree. tree. The stock was probably coming from distant sources of supply that we hadn't reckoned on. If he would only keep on buying for a few days longer, it would probably all be absorbed and the floating supply exhausted. But he became more and more suspicious.

Finally one day he arranged a meeting with me in my office at an early hour. He said it might be a meeting that would last some little time, and that therefore we must be free from interruptions. I suspected he was going to try some scheme on me. So I thought up a trick that would meet him halfway. I told him to come; I'd be glad to see him, and would be with him as long as he wished.

On the day appointed, he came early to my Broad Street office. We went into my private office. He turned and locked the door. I asked him why he locked the door.

"I'll tell you why," said he, and he began to stamp like a horse that's got pin-worms; "I'm going to find out whether you have been playing me square or not. And I'm taking this means to find out. Just before coming over here, I issued orders to my brokers to go onto the floor of the Exchange and offer to buy Erie. Now I'm going to keep you here behind lock and key for a while, to see if the market is still supplied with Erie when you're out of it. You don't stir out of this room until my brokers have had a chance to see.'

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I made believe to be hurt by his unkind suspicions. I said I didn't want to leave the room, or issue any selling orders to my brokers; because I wasn't doing any selling. But it hurt me to think that my old friend and partner had lost faith in me.

"Drew," said he, "you lie faster than a horse can trot. It isn't going to do you any good to be soft-soapy. That door isn't going to be unlocked till I ferret this thing out."

I spoke back. He answered me. Soon we got all het up in an argument. I made believe to send home my remarks by pounding on the table. For I had suspected Marsden's scheme; and so, before he came, I had told one of my clerks to place himself just outside the door of my private office, and every time he heard me pound on the table, he should send word to my brokers on the floor of the Exchange to sell a thousand shares of Erie.

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Marsden didn't suspect my scheme in the least. He was scampering around the room, nimble as a new-gelt pig. Every time I'd answer him good and hot, and pound with my hand on the desk, he got all the hotter, and spoke back. He kept the thing going. I was willing. It gave his brokers time to take all the Erie off my hands. Every once in a while I'd make believe to get all het up again, and hit the desk. This lasted well into the day.

By and by Marsden looked at his watch. "Well, it's pretty near closing time on the Stock Exchange; so I'm willing now to let you out of the room. I want to hear from my brokers, and see if they have had any offerings of Erie."

I told him he was welcome to go and find out, so far as I was concerned. I was glad I'd had the chance to prove my innocence. "You suspected me unjustly, you young spunkie," said I. "And now you'll find out. You'll see that it's been somebody else who has been unloading that stock onto you. Leastwise, you'll now see that it hasn't been me." Marsden went away.

The deal nearly broke him. In fact, my scheme was a little too successful. During that red hot argument, I had loaded his brokers with such blocks of the stock that when Marsden finally got back to the scene, it crippled him up. He couldn't take care of the purchases which his brokers had made. And when it came to settle the thing, I had to let

Marsden off with only part payment of his obligaAnd in doing so I had to let the cat

tions to me.

out of the bag. But I had a good chuckle over the success of my joke. I always did enjoy a joke, anyhow.

Speaking of jokes, I think one of the best funs I ever had was when I got the best of some of the church brethren. A number of them had got to coming to my house and talking Wall Street talk. They knew I was one of the inside operators, and that points from me were worth their weight in gold. (Everybody is kin to a rich man.) Even some of the professors out in my theological seminary in New Jersey were getting the Wall Street fever. On their visits at my house, whilst the talk of a winter's evening would be on matters of faith and doctrine, the subject in some way or other would get switched off to modern life and to the doings of Wall Street. First along, I was tender about having my business affairs brought into our conversation. But I soon saw that they were willing, if they had the chance, to try a flier or two in the Street.

So one time when a lot of them were coming pretty often, and seeing that I was starting out just then on a Bearing-down campaign, I allowed my talks with them to turn sort of gradual-like to presentday affairs, and to Wall Street. Then I'd say, in sort of an off-hand way, "I'm willing to tell one of the secrets of the Street if you'll keep it dark. An

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