eness of the
investor-out-for-quick profits, and after a few generalities, I got down
to the one question they all longed to ask but none dared to
voice--"What can I sell my subscription for if I want to part with it?"
Raising my voice a trifle and looking straight at them:

"Don't get excited about what you read in print these next few days," I
said, as though some one had asked me the question, "for there will be
hogsheads of rumors unhooped, and remember that rumor prices are never
real money. The papers this morning say that any one can sell at 40 to
60 per cent. profit, but that hardly seems reasonable to me; in fact, if
I were any of you who have been allotted stock and could get such profit
as that overnight, I'd take it. All I'll do just now is this: I will
give 110 for any amount any of you want to sell, provided you sell right
now--and 10 per cent. profit is not so bad when you come to think it's
40 per cent. on what actual money you have put up."

In the vernacular of stocks this process I used is called "moulding
public opinion" and "making a market," and it had the expected effect on
that bright May morning which followed the closing day of the
Amalgamated flotation. I was not offered a share; in fact, there was a
loud guffaw, and it was a hundred to one wager that as I passed on to
another group each listener tumbled over his neighbor to get in first.
"110! That's a good joke! I wonder if he takes us for children!
Evidently he is out early this morning to catch any stray worms napping!
110 for something worth 160!"

Inside of ten minutes it was all over the Waldorf and on the wires,
"Look out for Lawson! He's trying to get Amalgamated at 110." And by the
time I got to the Holland, a block down the Avenue, the brokers and
investors gathered there were ready to give me the laugh with "You're
out early, we see, to pick up a bundle of easy money."

My first task had been accomplished to my own satisfaction. Inside of an
hour it would be flashed over the world that there was a firm reliable
market at 110 bid and almost any price asked for Amalgamated, and while
110 was not anything like the wild 140 to 160 that rumor gossiped of, it
represented such a good profit that it was sure to set the market off
with an all-round chipperness.

My readers must bear in mind that as yet there was no real Amalgamated
stock which could be sold, and no place to sell it if there had been,
for until each subscriber received