Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1881-04-11
One wise Lamb in wall Street

New York Graphic.l
| remember seeing Il young man.
with a Ratchet face and long, sharp
nose, enter a brokers' Office a year or
two since, sit down and calmly begin
to count out a pile OF money which he
had brought rolled up in a bladder.
II want to buy" began this young
man with a long, thin nose, whom we
old and wise one at once set down as
the most lamb-like of all lambs; II
want to buy one hundred Northwesta at
rs, and here's the tin"
The broker only glanced at the
money, motioned to one of his clerks
and rushed out, for the market was
tumbling right straight down, and had
almost fallen to the figure at which
the singular looking countryman de-
sired to buy.
The knot of us about the ticker
smiled at this verdant countryman,
who had come to buy when all we're
selling, for the market had been going
off for a month, and was now very low,
and n of u party drew him into
conversation in the absence of the
broker.
He seemed quite wide awake, how
ever, and we soon found that although
he had never been in Wall street be-
fore, he had been watching from afar
of the decline of stocks for a long
time, and had come 70 the conclusion
that rs would be about the bottom
figure for Northwest. "And then"
added this singular man, with a sharp
voice and a Yankee twang in it, "and
then 76 is a lucky figure, anyhow
W. were informed in the course of
his brief and simple remarks that he
kept a tavern in an interior town up
in Connecticut, had a wife and chill
dren, and had brought all his earn
ings Tor the past eight years to buy
this l00'shares Of Northwest.
How we condoled with him on his
purchase in the declining market.
The fact is, three of us had that very
N morning been selling this same stock
short" We told him it would surely
fall to the neighborhood Of 80. That
would have SHARED the poor lamb,
we said, of more than a third of his
hard-earned money. We were hon
osty sorry for him, and one Of our
party told him that if he had only
asked us We would have gladly told
him better.
The broker soon returned. The
stock bad touched that figure in one
Of its dips downward, and the long,
thin yankee was happy.
AS it was a cash purchase, the coun-
tryman soon had the beautiful litho-
graph in hand, and after reading it
over from top to bottom, and then
turning it over and reading every syl-
liable on its back, he rolled it up in
the empty bladder, and after pecking
at US with his long, sharp nose, like
the beak Of an eagle, he was gone
gone and forgotten in an instant.
But he came back in a year or so.
Some Of us had made shipwreck ofour
fortunes and disappeared; others of us
we're SO deeply involved in the riddle
that the tape was trying to unravel for
us, that we did not at first notice or
know the thin face of the lank coun-
tryman from Connecticut.
However, he sat down, and, taking
a package from his pocket, he began to
unroll it as he beckoned the broker to
approach.
From the same dirty old bladder he
took the same 100 shares Of stock. and
reaching the paper to the broker said,
"Sell it at 1864"
A very large fash, a sort Of electric
light, indeed, flashed over us all in an
instant. Here was this lamb againl
de had come back to sell his stock.
And what do you think2 This
lamb who was anything but a lamb,
had made just precisely $4,000 above
interest and commissions and costs Of
all kinds, en- an investment Of $1,000.
And he had lost no sleep either. For
he knew it was drawing interest all
the time, and he, no doubt, slept with
his stock under his pillow and knew it
was safe. He made us all open our
eyes and begin to think.
With all our care and risk none Of
US had done half as we'll as this little
lamb, who had set off as l had ad-
vised in the first pages Of this book,
and watched the market from afar.
He had come to Wall street about
twice ayear, onc to buy and once to
sell.
And he had bought when stocks
were low, and sold when stocks were
high" And so beat the best Of us.
liked it at 26s said the singular,
sharp-hosed man, as he rolled up the
greenbacks in that gaeasy bladder that
afternoon; II fixed it at just that, SO
that | would have exactly $1,000 over
apd above commissions and costs of
coming down to town. Good after
noon, gentlemen"