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Fame and Fortune Weekly No. 1: A Lucky Deal; or The 'Cutest Boy in Wall Street

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<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</h2> A DERELICT OF WALL STREET. On his way back to the office Jack stopped at the Seaman’s Bank, on the corner of Wall and Pearl Streets, and opened a personal account for $150. The balance of the $200 he had received from Mrs. Breeze he handed over to his mother when he got home that night. You may be sure there was great joy in that little household over this unexpected windfall, and now the future looked very bright for them indeed. On Saturday afternoon Frank Simpson severed his connection with Mr. Atherton’s office, and the two boys parted in an especially cordial way. Nothing of any moment occurred during the next three or four months to interrupt the regular routine of Jack’s duties. He and his chum, Ed Potter, both had the Saturday half-holiday during the summer, and they put it in mostly playing ball up at the Olympic Field. One day Jack learned that Hartz’s messenger was about to leave him, so he called on the broker and asked him if he would give his friend Potter a trial. Hartz, who had a good opinion of Hazard, readily agreed to oblige him, so next day Ed came down to Wall Street and Jack introduced him to Hartz. In a day or so, Potter was taken into Hartz’s office on trial, and, proving satisfactory, was told that he would be advanced, if he deserved it, when the opportunity presented itself. Everybody who ran across Jack Hazard liked him. This was especially true in respect to those in the office with whom the boy came into daily contact. From Mr. Atherton himself down to the least important clerk it was all the same. It is possible, if there was any choice in that matter, Jack liked Millie Price, the stenographer and typewriter better than anyone else. Most everyone said she was a pretty girl, and what everybody generally says goes. She was certainly attractive in her manners, vivacious in her talk, and generally polite and agreeable in her deportment. She was a smart worker, was well up in her business, and had the confidence of the firm. “She has a level head and doesn’t put on any airs,” said Jack to his friend Ed one day when he was speaking about her. “I s’pose she gets good pay,” remarked Potter. “I believe she gets twelve dollars. She lives in Brooklyn with her mother, who is a widow, and I guess all the money they have is what she makes.” “She isn’t the only girl that supports her home.” “That’s right,” nodded Jack, and then they began to talk of something else. Next day Jack happened to be over at Hartz’s office on business for his firm when a seedy-looking old man, with a dissipated and dejected aspect, shuffled into the place. “I want to see Mr. Hartz,” he said in a trembling voice. “Mr. Hartz is engaged,” replied the clerk, turning away. Just then Hartz came out of his private room, and the visitor motioned to him in an eager sort of way. “Well,” said the broker, coldly, as he stepped up to the railing, “your account is closed, Mr. Tuggs. We sent you a notice and, as you didn’t respond, had to close you out at twenty-two, with a balance against you. Jenkins,” addressing his head bookkeeper, “prepare a statement of Mr. Tuggs’ account and hand it to me with notice of sale. Sit down, Mr. Tuggs. Statement ready presently,” and Mr. Hartz re-entered his sanctum, while the customer, with a gesture of despair, tottered over to the indicator and examined it with hungry eyes. Jack had overheard it all, and he watched this old derelict of Wall Street with sympathetic eyes. “Who is he?” he inquired of the clerk who had brought him the envelope he was to take back to Atherton’s. “Whom do you mean? Oh, Tuggs?” and the dapper clerk laughed sneeringly. “He’s got to be a regular nuisance round here, and we’re trying to get rid of him. He was rich once—a retired manufacturer, I think, who caught the Wall Street fever. Hartz has always been his broker, and I guess has sheared him down to his last dollar. At any rate, he used to shovel the dough in at a comfortable rate, but somehow or another he was nearly always on the wrong side of the market, and of late his investments haven’t amounted to shucks. Besides, he’s taken to drinking and has grown so disreputable in his looks that the boss doesn’t care to have him around any more. This last deal of his was two hundred shares of Lebanon and Jericho, which he bought on a ten-per-cent margin, as usual, for a rise, and I guess it took his last dollar. It’s fair stock, but fluctuates a good deal. After he bought it, it went to thirty-six, when he should have sold out. But he didn’t; expected it would go higher, of course, like all the lambs. Then it began to drop, and ever since it’s been below thirty-two he’s been on the anxious seat,” with a grin. “He’d drop in a dozen times a day and ask questions about it. He gave us all a pain; so I guess Hartz thought it was time to choke him off.” “He couldn’t close him out unless the stock went down ten per cent,” said Jack. “Of course not,” replied the clerk; “but it got pretty close to the danger mark day before yesterday, and we sent him a demand for more margin.” “And he couldn’t produce?” “He didn’t. Just before the Exchange closed Lebanon and Jericho touched twenty-two.” “And Mr. Hartz sold him out?” “Not at all. Hartz had something else to do than thinking about that measley little transaction.” “But I heard him tell the man he had closed him out at twenty-two,” persisted Jack. “Well,” said the clerk, with a wink, “there are more ways than one of killing a cat. The boss saw a chance of getting rid of an undesirable customer when he noted that the stock had touched twenty-two, though the last quotation, a few minutes later, was twenty-four and three-eighths. He simply made an arrangement this morning with another broker and told Jenkins to make an entry of the transaction as having occurred yesterday and to report him closed out at twenty-two—see? That’s done every day,” nodding good-bye to Jack. The boy understood, and his lip curled at the meanness of the transaction, for the steal was small. Not only that, but Jack knew that most reputable brokers, in a case where a man had been a good customer of the house, would sooner have strained a point in his favor than have worked the squeeze game against him. But Hartz wasn’t accustomed to do business in that way. “I’m dead sorry for the poor old fellow,” murmured Jack, turning to leave, just as Jenkins came over and thrust the statement into Tuggs’ trembling fingers. The old fellow looked at it blankly. “I believe it’s all a lie,” he said, hoarsely. “I don’t believe Hartz has sold my stock at all. It touched twenty-two, and he reports it sold at the lowest price, though it rose immediately to twenty-four and three-eighths. They credit it on my account at twenty-two, and it is now thirty, and they steal a profit to themselves of over eight hundred dollars, and cast me out a beggar. It closed at twenty-two and three-eighths, and opened at twenty-two and five-eighths. It is infamous! But what can I do? I am ruined. I am helpless. I am utterly at the mercy of this man. He is rich with the money he has taken from fools like me, and yet he will not help me.” Jack listened to his ravings in silent pity and held the door open for him to totter out. Later in the day, just after the Exchange had closed, Jack ran across Tuggs again on Wall Street, coming out of an office building with a bundle in his hand. He looked more despairing than ever, if that could be possible. He stood for several minutes, looking up and down the thoroughfare as if not knowing which way to go. Then he started across the street, staggering like a drunken man, just as an express wagon came swinging along at a rapid rate. Jack sprang forward just in the nick of time to save him from being trampled on by the horses. “Where in thunder are you going to?” the driver yelled at him in an angry tone. Tuggs took no notice of the remark. Indeed he seemed hardly conscious that he had just escaped a grave peril. He stood swaying to and fro in Jack’s grasp like some scarecrow that had come from a cornfield. “Let me help you across,” said the boy. Tuggs looked at him with lack-lustre eyes and stepped out as Jack pulled him along by the arm. “Where are you going?” asked Jack, after he had landed him on the sidewalk. “I don’t know,” said Tuggs, wearily. “I guess you’d better go home, hadn’t you?” suggested the young messenger. “Home?” muttered the old man, in an absent kind of way. “Where do you live?” asked Jack, curiously. The boy had to repeat the question before he learned that Tuggs was stopping at the Mills House—that haven for derelicts of all ages and conditions. “Gee!” thought the young messenger, “if he was a retired manufacturer once, he’s sunk pretty low. I guess Wall Street has much to answer for.” <hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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