“I believe it’s all a lie,” he said, hoarsely. “I don’t believe Hartz has sold my stock at all. It touched twenty-two, and he reports it sold at the lowest price, though it rose immediately to twenty-four and three-eighths. They credit it on my account at twenty-two, and it is now thirty, and they steal a profit to themselves of over eight hundred dollars, and cast me out a beggar. It closed at twenty-two and three-eighths, and opened at twenty-two and five-eighths. It is infamous! But what can I do? I am ruined. I am helpless. I am utterly at the mercy of this man. He is rich with the money he has taken from fools like me, and yet he will not help me.” Jack listened to his ravings in silent pity and held the door open for him to totter out. Later in the day, just after the Exchange had closed, Jack ran across Tuggs again on Wall Street, coming out of an office building with a bundle in his hand. He looked more despairing than ever, if that could be possible. He stood for several minutes, looking up and down the thoroughfare as if not knowing which way to go. Then he started across the street, staggering like a drunken man, just as an express wagon came swinging along at a rapid rate. Jack sprang forward just in the nick of time to save him from being trampled on by the horses. “Where in thunder are you going to?” the driver yelled at him in an angry tone. Tuggs took no notice of the remark. Indeed he seemed hardly conscious that he had just escaped a grave peril. He stood swaying to and fro in Jack’s grasp like some scarecrow that had come from a cornfield. “Let me help you across,” said the boy. Tuggs looked at him with lack-lustre eyes and stepped out as Jack pulled him along by the arm. “Where are you going?” asked Jack, after he had landed him on the sidewalk. “I don’t know,” said Tuggs, wearily. “I guess you’d better go home, hadn’t you?” suggested the young messenger. “Home?” muttered the old man, in an absent kind of way. “Where do you live?” asked Jack, curiously. The boy had to repeat the question before he learned that Tuggs was stopping at the Mills House--that haven for derelicts of all ages and conditions. “Gee!” thought the young messenger, “if he was a retired manufacturer once, he’s sunk pretty low. I guess Wall Street has much to answer for.” CHAPTER IX. JACK’S FIRST INVESTMENT. The old man dropped his package on the sidewalk, and the string becoming undone the contents were spilled out. Jack stooped down to pick them up and found they were certificates of some kind of mining stock he had never heard of. Each one represented 500 shares of the Gopher Gold Mining Company, of Bullfrog, Nevada. At the sight of them Tuggs seemed to brighten up a bit. “Do you want to buy them?” he asked, eagerly. “What are they worth?” asked Jack, smiling at the idea of a messenger boy being able to acquire even 500 shares of any reputable mining stock. “Millions!” exclaimed the old man.