After consulting with my friend, the broker, who, to do him justice, it must be confessed, gave me the best advice that his fears permitted, I concluded to sell out my stock at ninety-eight, while it was on the descent, and buy again the moment it should reach the lowest point, which the broker and I thought would be about ninety. Then, if our expectations should be realized, and the stock again reach what I had before given, namely, one hundred and four, it is clear that I should, beside recovering my loss, make eight per cent. profit. Here was a most glorious opportunity for a speculation—one of those that occur about twice in a century. It was a happy thought in me to sell even at a great loss, with a view of repurchasing on better terms; and I could not help regarding it as a singularly bold move—one indicating great genius, and just such a one as Napoleon himself, under similar circumstances, might have conceived and made. I became elated at the prospect, and bade my friend sell out with all possible expedition. He did so at ninety-eight, being a loss to me of six per cent., or six hundred dollars—a pretty fair clip from the back of my little capital of fifteen hundred. I should have been exceedingly annoyed by this docking of my fortune, had not the certainty which I felt of making good the deficiency, encouraged me; and but for the most perfect confidence I entertained in the success of my next adventure, I should, in all human probability, have retired from Wall street with much the same feeling that a fox has when he sneaks off to his hole, after parting with his tail in a trap. But what short-sighted mortals we are, and how the blindfolded goddess loves to sport with human calculations! ————Heu, Fortuna, quis est crudelior in nos Te Deus?—ut semper gaudes illudere rebus Humanis!