"No, I don't want to stand in the way," said Samuel.
And so the decision was made. When they came to give the order they
found themselves confronted with a strange proposition; they did not
have to buy the whole stock, it seemed--they might buy only the
increase in its value. And the effect of this marvelous device would
be that they would make ten times as much as they had expected to
make! So, needless to say, they bought that way.
And they took a daily paper and watched breathlessly, while "Glass
Bottle Securities" crept up from sixty-three and an eighth to sixty-
four and a quarter. And then, late one evening, old Hiram Johns, the
storekeeper, drove up with a telegram from Manning and Isaacson,
telling them that they must put up more "margin"--"Glass Bottle
Securities" was at fifty-six and five eighths. They sat up all night
debating what this could mean and trying to lay the specters of
horror. The next day Adam set out to go to the city and see about it;
but he met the mail on the way and came home again with a letter from
the brokers, regretfully informing them that it had been necessary to
sell the stock, which was now below fifty. In the news columns of the
paper they found the explanation of the calamity--old Henry Lockman
had dropped dead of apoplexy at the climax of his career, and the
bears had played havoc with "Glass Bottle Securities.
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