Maybe you think, dear reader, that a broker who charges his customer interest at the rate of six per cent. per annum on money which he has ceased to advance is crooked. Very well. If that be so, then all members of the New York Stock Exchange must be labelled "crooks." Here is how it works, even among the highest class and most conservative members of that great securities emporium: John Jones orders the purchase by his broker of 1,000 shares of Steel on margin. He pays down 10 per cent. of the purchase price. Mr. Jones receives a statement at the end of the month charging him with interest at the rate of six per cent. per annum, or more if the call-money market is higher, on the 90 per cent. of the purchase price advanced by the house. On the same day that the order of John Jones is received, William Smith orders the same house to sell short 1,000 shares of Steel at the market. This order is also promptly filled. Thereupon the broker uses the 1,000 shares of Steel, which he bought for the account of John Jones to make delivery through the Clearing House for the account of William Smith. Sometimes a fictitious William Smith is created, known as "Account No. 1," "A. & S. Account," "E. Account," etc. This is usually done when a broker wants to hide from his bookkeepers that he or an associate is taking the other end of the customer's trade. The broker is out no money, yet he charges Mr. Jones the regular rate of interest on his debit balance. As a matter of fact, too, the stock bought for Mr. Jones is never even delivered to his broker. The Clearing House, because of the "short" sale, steps in and delivers it to the broker to whom it is due "on balance." Custom and practice cover a multitude of remarkable transactions--don't they? You have the framework of the Scheftels structure and of its Wall Street environment outlined in this chapter. Some of the narrative is undoubtedly "dry-as-dust," but its recital has appeared to be necessary to enable the lay reader properly to interpret the chronology of stirring events which forms the concluding installment. In the foregoing I have endeavored to lay bare many practices that are common to Wall Street. Wherever I have laid them at the door of B. H. Scheftels & Company, I have given that corporation much the worst of it, because in the recital I have omitted to mention a multitude of happenings that were creditable to an extreme to the Scheftels company. Most of these had to do with the experiences of the Scheftels company as publicity agents and promoters. Its wide-open publicity and promotion policy called forth the ire of influential Wall Street pirates and caused the "pressure" at Washington which resulted in the Federal raid of the Scheftels offices. I have reserved this dramatic series of events for my last chapter. CHAPTER XI A FIGHT TO THE DEATH In professional quarters the Scheftels corporation was regarded as an interloper from the day it set foot in the financial district.