Show the prospector an and d his burro A 1 I 1 I got in last night from the metropolis said the prospector to his burro and I 1 want to tell you that they have been holding warm sessions along brokers row low during the past few weeks I 1 did not go dead broke while in the city but if I 1 had stayed a week longer some of the brokers there would have cleaned me out sure enough As it was many of the small investors and speculators saw their finish before I 1 left and they were in a worse fix than if they had been taking a land hand at poker with some of our mining camp sharps caught well I 1 guess they were and some of the brokers were making all kinds of the long green on the money entrusted to their care by customers some of the investors thought they saw a good thin thing in shorting stocks others bought for future delivery while laboring under the idea that the bottom had been reached and that the bull would make a charge into the pit at almost any moment when I 1 departed however the shorts had the best ot of the argument and these were all packing around teddy bears as mascots others there were who were dealing on margins and I 1 was one of these blooming idiots and if I 1 had not called for delivery and pocketed my stocks and losses I 1 would have been completely wiped off the slate when a man deals in margins margin he confidently believes that the stock will go up and that he can make a winning by the expenditure of only a small amount of cash in the beginning z paying the balance at the end out of his profits you do not seem to be clear in your mind as to the meaning of the word margin t in and evidently think that it is the highly flavored covering t of a chicago liam ham or a little grassy patch encircling a nice pool ot of water but none whatever and your country training would make you appear like a fool along brokers row notwithstanding the fact that now and then a streak of intelligence genc e sweeps across your ii usually inexpressive countenance when a man inan has developed his inherited strain of insanity to the proper pitch he goes to the hank bank and tells the behind the cashiers desk that bucking the tiger is not exciting enough and that he has decided to give the guggenheims and the heinzel aces and spades and then beat them out on margined stock the cashier looks pleased but in his mind is thinking of the old proverb of the fool and his money wilh wi th his credit established at the bank the sucker goes to a broker and tells him to buy the stock for him the margin is put up and the buyer settles down to see the market go up however he has the cart before the horse as stocks go down and he is called up by the cashier who demands inore more cash on his layout lay out as the former margin has been wiped out it is then an up and down game with the speculator in which margins are put up and stocks are going down finally the credit of the rash investor is exhausted he cannot flash up any more of the coin of the realm and the banker proceeds to sell his stock on quotations established on a bear market from the proceeds the margins advanced are deducted commissions accounted for and the poor dupe at the cleanup clean up has only a few hundred dollars to show for the thousand or two he has invested interesting you say so it is for the broker and the banker but it is not so funny for the poor investor who retires to bome ome isolated place where he may kick himself to his hearts content with me however I 1 reached the limit before my pile had been swallowed up by wiped out margins I 1 soon called for my stock the broker said that it was in his safe and that he would have it for me in two hours then lie he put me off until the next morning and then I 1 discovered that he had not bought the stock for me at all and that he had been using my money for his own private purposes I 1 then sent up a roar that could be heard from goldfield to searchlight and seared scared the broker so that he bought the stock for me inside of two days and this he did at a loss to himself I 1 lost some money a portion of my wad but I 1 have the stock which I 1 will put away fully satisfied that some day it will make me dollars where I 1 put in cents and this will then be just like getting money from home 1 I want to tell you old long ears continued the prospector it is all right to buy stocks for an investment and to hold but when you or I 1 go in to speculate when we think we can line up with the wise ones we will later discover the lamentable fact that we were raised on the wrong side of the crib from the big fellows we ave will find that we are as lambs in a den of wolves that roulette is a safer game and that it is better to put money on the green and copper the red than it is to go on oil a bear market and try t to 0 make millions on margins 0 I 1 will take faro every time and no margins margin for me from now on none whatever |