Reminiscences of a Stock Operator

I went to work when I was just out of grammar school. I got a job as quotation-board boy in a stock-brokerage office. I was quick at figures. At school I did three years of arithmetic in one. I was particularly good at mental arithmetic. As quotation-board boy I posted the numbers on the big board in the customers’ room. One of the customers usually sat by the ticker and called out the prices. They couldn’t come too fast for me. I have always remembered figures. No trouble at all.

There were plenty of other employes in that office. Of course I made friends with the other fellows, but the work I did, if the market was active, kept me too busy from ten A.M. to three P.M. to let me do much talking. I don’t care for it, anyhow, during business hours.

But a busy market did not keep me from thinking about the work. Those quotations did not represent prices of stocks to me, so many dollars per share. They were numbers. Of course, they meant something. They were always changing. It was all I had to be interested in—the changes. Why did they change? I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I didn’t think about that. I simply saw that they changed. That was all I had to think about five hours every day and two on Saturdays: that they were always changing.

I had put out my 3500 shares of Sugar at 105¼. There was another fellow in the room, Henry Williams, who was short 2500 shares. I used to sit by the ticker and call out the quotations for the board boy. The price behaved as I thought it would. It promptly went down a couple of points and paused a little to get its breath before taking another dip. The general market was pretty soft and everything looked promising. Then all of a sudden I didn’t like the way Sugar was doing its hesitating. I began to feel uncomfortable. I thought I ought to get out of the market. Then it sold at 103—that was low for the day—but instead of feeling more confident I felt more uncertain. I knew something was wrong somewhere, but I couldn’t spot it exactly. But if something was coming and I didn’t know where from, I couldn’t be on my guard against it. That being the case I’d better be out of the market.

You know, I don’t do things blindly. I don’t like to. I never did. Even as a kid I had to know why I should do certain things. But this time I had no definite reason to give to myself, and yet I was so uncomfortable that I couldn’t stand it. I called to a fellow I knew, Dave Wyman, and said to him: “Dave, you take my place here. I want you to do something for me. Wait a little before you call out the next price of Sugar, will you?”

I went in. Dolan was sitting at his desk. He swung around and said, “Sit down, Livingston.”

He pointed to a chair. My last hope vanished. I don’t know how he discovered who I was; perhaps from the hotel register.

“What do you want to see me about?” I asked him.

“Listen, kid. I ain’t got nothin’ agin yeh, see? Nothin’ at all. See?”

“No, I don’t see,” I said.

He got up from his swivel chair. He was a whopping big guy. He said to me, “Just come over here, Livingston, will yeh?” and he walked to the door. He opened it and then he pointed to the customers in the big room.

“D’yeh see them?” he asked me.

“See what?”

“Them guys. Take a look at ’em, kid. There’s three hundred of ’em! Three hundred suckers! They feed me and my family. See? Three hundred suckers! Then yeh come in, and in two days yeh cop more than I get out of the three hundred in two weeks. That ain’t business, kid—not for me! I ain’t got nothin’ agin yeh. Yer welcome to what ye’ve got. But yeh don’t any more. There ain’t any here for yeh!”

“Why, I——”

“That’s all. I seen yeh come in day before yesterday, and I didn’t like yer looks. On the level, I didn’t. I spotted yeh for a ringer.

The market, we found, was strong and active. My friend, who was quite bullish, was carrying a moderate line purchased several points lower. He began to tell me what an obviously wise thing it was to hold stocks for much higher prices. I wasn’t paying enough attention to him to take the trouble to agree with him. I was looking over the quotation board, noting the changes—they were mostly advances—until I came to Union Pacific. I got a feeling that I ought to sell it. I can’t tell you more. I just felt like selling it. I asked myself why I should feel like that, and I couldn’t find any reason whatever for going short of UP.

I stared at the last price on the board until I couldn’t see any figures or any board or anything else, for that matter. All I knew was that I wanted to sell Union Pacific and I couldn’t find out why I wanted to.

I must have looked queer, for my friend, who was standing alongside of me, suddenly nudged me and asked, “Hey, what’s the matter?”

“I don’t know,” I answered.

“Going to sleep?” he said.

“No,” I said. “I am not going to sleep. What I am going to do is to sell that stock.” I had always made money following my hunches.

I didn’t wish to be bothered and, as I was trading on a very large scale and my account was fairly profitable, I was pretty well guarded.

One day just after the market closed I heard somebody say, “Good afternoon, Mr. Livingston.”

I turned and saw an utter stranger—a chap of about thirty-five. I could not understand how he’d got in, but there he was. I concluded his business with me had passed him. But I didn’t say anything. I just looked at him and pretty soon he said, “I came to see you about that Walter Scott,” and he was off.

He was a book agent. Now, he was not particularly pleasing of manner or skillful of speech. Neither was he especially attractive to look at. But he certainly had personality. He talked and I thought I listened. But I do not know what he said. I don’t think I ever knew, not even at the time. When he finished his monologue he handed me first his fountain pen and then a blank form, which I signed. It was a contract to take a set of Scott’s works for five hundred dollars.

The moment I signed I came to. But he had the contract safe in his pocket. I did not want the books. I had no place for them. They weren’t of any use whatever to me. I had nobody to give them to. Yet I had agreed to buy them for five hundred dollars.