security, dealing for small amounts in the most inert stocks, and

bearing (as best I could) the scorn of my hired clerk. One day I

had ventured a little further by way of experiment; and, in the sure

expectation they would continue to go down, sold several thousand

dollars of Pan-Handle Preference (I think it was). I had no sooner

made this venture than some fools in New York began to bull the market;

Pan-Handles rose like a balloon; and in the inside of half an hour I saw

my position compromised. Blood will tell, as my father said; and I stuck

to it gallantly: all afternoon I continued selling that infernal

stock, all afternoon it continued skying. I suppose I had come (a frail

cockle-shell) athwart the hawse of Jay Gould; and, indeed, I think I

remember that this vagary in the market proved subsequently to be the

first move in a considerable deal. That evening, at least, the name of

H. Loudon Dodd held the first rank in our collegiate gazette, and I and

Billson (once more thrown upon the world) were competing for the same

clerkship. The present object takes the present eye. My disaster,

for the moment, was the more conspicuous; and it was I that got the

situation. So you see, even in Muskegon Commercial College, there were

lessons to be learned.

For my own part, I cared very little whether I lost or won at a game so

random, so complex, and so dull; but it was sorry news to write to my

poor father, and I employed all the resources of my eloquence. I told

him (what was the truth) that the successful boys had none of the

education; so that if he wished me to learn, he should rejoice at my

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