Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1907-08-14

not know he was in the stock business.
Formerly every clerk knew when Bob
came or went, for 1t was with 4 rush,
4 shout, laugh, and a bang of doors;
and on the floor Of the stock exchange
no man played 30 many pranks, or
filed his orders with so much jolly
good-nature and hilarious boisterous-
ness. But from the day the Virginian
girl crossed his path, Bob BROMLEY
was a man who was thinking, think
ing, thinking all the time. 1t was only
with an effort that he would keep his
eyes on whomever he was talking with
long enough to take in what was said,
and if the saying occupied much time
it would be apparent to the talker that
Bob was of in the clouds. All his
friends and associates remarked the
change, but I alone, except perhaps
Kate, had any idea of the cause I
knew that two million dollars and the
coming New Year we're hurdling like
kangaroos over Bob's mental rails and
bitches, though did not know it from
anything he told me, for after that
talk on the upper deck of the Tribes
man he had shut up like clam.
He did not exactly shun me, but
showed me in many ways that he
had entered into a new world, in
which he desired to be alone. That
Beulah Sands plight had reused into
intense activity all the latent romance
of my friends nature, did not sur
prise me. l foresaw from the first
that Bob would fall head over heels
in love with this beautiful, sorrow
laden girl, and it was soon obvious
that the longdelayed shaft had plant
ed its point in the innermost depths
of his being. His was more than love;
fervid idolatry now had possession
OF his soul, mind and body. Yet its
outward manifestations were the op-
posite of what one would have looked
for in this gay and optimistic south.
erner. 1t was rather priest-like wor-
ship, calm imperturbability that
| nothing seemed to distract or upset,
at least in the presence of the goddess
who was its object. Every morning
he would pass through my Office head
ed straight for the little room she &C.
| cupied as if it were his one objective
point of the day, but once he heard
his own Good morning, Miss Sands"
he seemed to round to, and while in
her presence was the Bob BROMLEY of
! old. He would be in and out all
day on any and every pretext, al
ways entering with an undisguised
eagerness, leaving with slow, dreamy
reluctance. That he never saw her
| outside the Office, am sure, for she
said goodnight to him when he or
she left for the day, with the same
don't-come-with-me dignity that she
exhibited to all the rest of US. I
had not attempted to say word to
Bob about his feeling for Beulah
Sands, nor had he ever brought up
the subject to me. On the contrary,
he studiously avoided it.
Three months of the six had now
passed, and with each day l thought
| noted an increasing anxiety in Bob
He had opened a special account for
Miss Sands on the books of the house
| in his name as agent. with credit Of
100000, and we both watched it with
| painful tenseness of scrutiny 1t
| had grown by uneven jerks, until the
balance on October l was almost
100000. On some of the trades Bob
had consulted me, and on others, two
in particular where he closed up after
a few days operations with nearly
$1,000 900 profit, l did not even know
what the trading was based on until
the stocks had been sold. Then he
said:
Jim, that little lady from Virginia
can give us big handicap and play
us to standstill at our own game
She told me to buy all the Burlington
and Sugar her account would stand,
and did not even ask my opinion. In
both cases / thought the operations
were more the result of q wakeful
night, and an 1-must-do-something de-
cision than anything else, and 1 tack
led both with SILVER; but when she
told me to sell them out at q time
thought they looked like going high
er, and the next day they slumped,
! could not help thinking about the des-
tiny that shapes our ends"
On my part tried to help. On one
occasion, without consulting her: I
put her account in on a sure thing
underwriting, wherein she stood to
make profit of q quarter of a mil
lion, but when Bob told her what l
had done, she insisted with great dig
nifty that her name be withdrawn.
After that neither of us dared help
her to any short cuts. Bob was deep
" impressed by her principles, and,
commenting on them, said: Jim, II
all Wall street had 4 code similar to
Beulah Sands to hew to in their gam
bles, ours would be a fairer and more
manly game, and many of the multi
millionaires would be clerking, while
lot of the hand-to-mouth traders
would come down town in a new auto
every day in the week. She does not
believe in stock gambling. She has
worked it out that every dollar one
man makes, another loses; that the
one who makes gives nothing in
return for what he gets away with;
and that the other fellows loss makes
him and his as miserable as would
robbery to the same amount. Yet
she realizes that she must get back
those millions stolen from her father.
and is willing to smother her con-
science to attempt it, provided she
takes no unfair advantage of the 9TH
er players. The other day she said