ed, down upon me would
swoop the bad losers in a body to give me a turbulent and interesting
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 very 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 customers many
with the true, even-tenored sporting instinct. These were bearing
their losses with philosophy--none of them was there. Of the perhaps
three hundred who had come to ease their anguish by tongue-lashing me,
every one was mad through and through--those who had lost a few
hundred dollars 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 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 & Co. 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 we have ever been."

Again I looked from coward to coward of that mob, changed from three
hundred stro