risy and less
nerve than I, shrink from it. When one of my tips miscarried, down upon me
would swoop the bad losers in a body to give me a turbulent quarter of an
hour.

Toward ten o'clock, my boy came in and said: "Mr. Ball thinks it's about
time for you to see some of these people."

I went into the main room, where the tickers and blackboards were. As I
approached through my outer office I could hear the noise the crowd was
making--as they cursed me. If you want to rile the true inmost soul of the
average human being, don't take his reputation or his wife; just cause
him to lose money. There were among my speculating customers many with
the even-tenored sporting instinct. These were bearing their losses with
philosophy--none of them had swooped on me. Of the perhaps three hundred
who had come to ease their anguish by tongue-lashing me, every one was
a bad loser and was mad through and through--those who had lost a few
hundred dollars were as infuriated as those whom my misleading tip had cost
thousands and tens of thousands; those whom I had helped to win all they
had in the world were more savage than those new to my following.

I took my stand in the doorway, a step up from the floor of the main room.
I looked all round until I had met each pair of angry eyes. They say I can
give my face an expression that is anything but agreeable; such talent as
I have in that direction I exerted then. The instant I appeared a silence
fell; but I waited until the last pair of claws drew in. Then I said, in
the quiet tone the army officer uses when he tells the mob that the machine
guns will open up in two minutes by the watch: "Gentlemen, in the effort to
counteract my warning to the public, the Textile crowd rocketed the stock
yesterday. Those who heeded my warning and sold got excellent prices. Those
who did not should sell to-day. Not even the powerful interests behind
Textile can long maintain yesterday's prices."

A wave of restlessness passed over the crowd. Many shifted their eyes from
me and began to murmur.

I raised my voice slightly as I went on: "The speculators, the gamblers,
are the only people who were hurt. Those who sold what they didn't have are
paying for their folly. I have no sympathy for them. Blacklock and Company
wishes none such in its following, and seizes every opportunity to weed
them out. We are in business only for the bona fide investing public, and
we are stronger with that public to-day than w