rs talked of it and the public went mad over it and
it touched 80 and 85 and 88 and higher, and then Gilmartin made his
brother-in-law sell out and Smithers and Freeman. Their profits were:
Griggs, $8,000; Smithers, $15,100; Freeman, $2,750. 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. 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. But not so Gilmartin, who retorted, witheringly:

"Well, I've often heard of folks that you put into good things and they
make money and afterward they come to you and tell how damned smart
they were to hit it right. But you can't work that on me. I've got
witnesses."

"Witnesses?" echoed Smithers, looking cheap. He remembered.

"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.

VI

It seemed as though the regeneration of Gilmartin had been achieved
when he changed his shabby raiment for expensive clothes. He paid his
tradesmen's bills and moved into better quarters. He spent his money as
though he had made millions. One week after he had closed out the deal
his friends would have sworn Gilmartin had always been prosperous. That
was his exterior. His inner self remained the same--a gambler. He began
to speculate again, in the office of Freeman's brokers.

At the end of the second month he had lost not only the $1,200 he had
deposited with the firm, but an additional $250 he had given his wife
and had been obliged to "borrow" back from her, despite her assurances
that he would lose it. This time the slump was really unexpected by
all, even by the magnates--the mysterious and all-powerful "they" of
Freeman's--so that the loss of