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.He knows all the don'ts thatever fell from the oracular lips of the old stagers excepting the principal one, which is:- 50 - Reminiscences of a Stock OperatorDon't be a sucker!This semisucker is the type that thinks he has cut his wisdom teeth because he loves tobuy on declines.He waits for them.He measures his bargains by the number of points ithas sold off from the top.In big bull markets the plain unadulterated sucker, utterlyignorant of rules and precedents, buys blindly because he hopes blindly.He makes mostof the money until one of the healthy reactions takes it away from him at one fell swoop.But the Careful Mike sucker does what I did when I thought I was playing the gameintelligently according to the intelligence of others.I knew I needed to change mybucket-shop methods and I thought I was solving my problem with any change,particularly one that assayed high gold values according to the experienced tradersamong the customers.Most -let us call 'em customers -are alike.You find very few who can truthfully say thatWall Street doesn't owe them money.In Fullerton's there were the usual crowd.Allgrades! Well, there was one old chap who was not like the others.To begin with, he wasa much older man.Another thing was that he never volunteered advice and neverbragged of his winnings.He was a great hand for listening very attentively to the others.He did not seem very keen to get tips that is, he never asked the talkers what they'dheard or what they knew.But when somebody gave him one he always thanked thetipster very politely.Sometimes he thanked the tipster again when the tip turned outO.K.But if it went wrong he never whined, so that nobody could tell whether hefollowed it or let it slide by.It was a legend of the office that the old jigger was rich andcould swing quite a line.But he wasn't donating much to the firm in the way ofcommissions; at least not that anyone could see.His name was Partridge, but theynicknamed him Turkey behind his back, because he was so thick-chested and had a habitof strutting about the various rooms, with the point of his chin resting on his breast.The customers, who were all eager to be shoved and forced into doing things so as to laythe blame for failure on others, used to go to old Partridge and tell him what some friendof a friend of an insider had advised them to do in a certain stock.They would tell himwhat they had not done with the tip so he would tell them what they ought to do.Butwhether the tip they had was to buy or to sell, the old chap's answer was always thesame.The customer would finish the tale of his perplexity and then ask: "What do you think I- 51 - Reminiscences of a Stock Operatorought to do?"Old Turkey would cock his head to one side, contemplate his fellow customer with afatherly smile, and finally he would say very impressively, "You know, it's a bullmarket!"Time and again I heard him say, "Well, this is a bull market, you know!" as though hewere giving to you a priceless talisman wrapped up in a million-dollar accident-insurance policy.And of course I did not get his meaning.One day a fellow named Elmer Harwood rushed into the office, wrote out an order andgave it to the clerk.Then he rushed over to where Mr.Partridge was listening politely toJohn Fanning's story of the time he overheard Keene give an order to one of his brokersand all that John made was a measly three points on a hundred shares and of course thestock had to go up twenty-four points in three days right after John sold out.It was atleast the fourth time that John had told him that tale of woe, but old Turkey was smilingas sympathetically as if it was the first time he heard it.Well, Elmer made for the old man and, without a word of apology to John Fanning, toldTurkey, "Mr.Partridge, I have just sold my Climax Motors.My people say the market isentitled to a reaction and that I'll be able to buy it back cheaper.So you'd better dolikewise.That is, if you've still got yours."Elmer looked suspiciously at the man to whom he had given the original tip to buy.Theamateur, or gratuitous, tipster always thinks he owns the receiver of his tip body andsoul, even before he knows how the tip is going to turn out."Yes, Mr.Harwood, I still have it.Of course!" said Turkey gratefully.It was nice ofElmer to think of the old chap."Well, now is the time to take your profit and get in againon the next dip," said Elmer, as if he had just made out the deposit slip for the old man
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