Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1886-05-07
A CLERKS CAREER.
How an Extravagant Wall Street Car ,er
Came to Grief
[N. y. Cor. ALBANY Jonrnal1

N. L. Cor. Albany Journal1
Nothing could illustrate the ephemeral
nature of Wall street popularity more than
the career of a man who has lust come to
grief with suddenness. He is shrewd in
his way, perhaps thirty five years of age,
loquacious, loud-voiced and positive.
Until two years ago he was a clerk in a
brokers office. One day a big operator
who frequented the Office and who has n
constitutional dislike to exertion of any
kind, discovered that nobody could help
him on with his isoverccat with such dextor-
ity as our hero. So ha asked for
him peevishly every day when he started
for home, and within a week learned to
call him by name. That meant a good
deal for such man. Wherever the big
speculator went he was sure to see the
clerk. Within six months the shrewd
toadying of the young employe. placed
him in such position that he was practi-
cally indispensable to the big operator. 1t
was done in peculiar way. The younger
man did not attempt to give the elder
points, or bore him with suggestions on
the market, but he was always on hand
when he could be of any service in a social
way. If the big speculator expressed a
esire togo to the theater he always found
that the younger man had a Eox, which
was at his services; If he couldn't decide
what to take for luncheon at Delmon-
ico's, On adroit suggestion from his
shadow put him on the right track, and
no matter which way his inclination ran
in all amusement way, the heavy faced
young clerk was able to do any thing for
him, from an introduction to the latest
goddess of burlesque to private compart-
ment on crowded train going to or from
the races. An intelligent man with plenty
OF assurance, big purse and the willing
ness to act as body to a peevish
old millionaire gambler, can easily make
himself almost a necessity. OF course the
clerk did not spend his own money in
looking after the wants of his old patron.
Wall street brokers will do anything on
earth to secure the trade of such man as
the fault-finding speculator. Commits
sions on his operations means a fortune
every year. So the firm regularly backed
the talky young man and paid all the
bills he contracted in entertaining
the chief customer. 1t was, perhaps,
his success in this particular case which
suggested to the clerk the idea of becoming
general capper or runner-ia for the house
by which he was employed. For two years
he flourished in New York in way that
made ambitious youngsters of every de-
gree of fortune sigh with envy. His terms
with the house were liberal. They paid all
his expenses and he received n salary of
three thousand dollars year with COM
mission on all the orders that he was in
strumental in sending into his firm. If
ever there was hunter of men it was he.
he had magnificent apartments on Fifth
avenue and unlimited credit everywhere.
Whenever his bills came in they were paid
at once by the firm and there was never
such thing as a dispute about the
money that was spent. In point of
fact it is not easy to go beyond certain
sum, no matter how will the spendthrift
may be. A box at the theater every night,
unlimited carriage all day long, half
dozen dinners a week, with a few bouquets
and some extra baskets of wine thrown in,
viii leave n remainder, out of which three
hundred dollars week, and that amount
of commission in brokers' office is q small
thing.
So the runner-in lived like a Prince,
sought the society of rich young men
and served them in every way from being
an entertainer down to a business agent.
he made great deal of money and he
speculated with it. While he was up
no man was more popular, but if his rise
was sudden, it was nothing to his fall. His
firm recently got into several alterations
with the millionaire fathers of youngsters
who had been roped into Wall street spec
ulation by this professional tempter, and
they made it decidedly unpleasant for the
firm. One of the millionaires was a friend
of the crusty old speculator. The old man
withdrew his patronage from the house,
there was a row, the runner-in fancied he
was indispensable to the firm, and to prove
thathe wasn't they discharged him without
a moments warning. The result was that
he made heavy plunge in the market,
risked every cent he owned and all he
could get credit for, on deal of which he
was sure, and was laid out on his back.
He is in New York, but he has disappeared
from the town as thoroughly as though he
never lived. The men who formerly
courted him have almost forgotten his
name already, and he is only remembered
by his crowd of creditors, who denounce
him on all sides as confidence operator
and beat. He is now hanging about the
bucket shops.