These imaginary millionaires appear in a small swarm during every prolonged bull market, only to fall with their wings singed as soon as prices decline. Such speculators are, to all practical intents and purposes, irresponsible. It is their very irresponsibility which has enabled them to make money so rapidly on advancing prices. The prudent man gets only moderate profits in a bull market—it is the man who trades on “shoe-string margins” who gets the biggest benefit out of the rise. When such mushroom fortunes have accumulated, the market may fall temporarily into the hands of these daredevil spirits, so that almost any recklessness is possible for the time. It is this kind of buying which causes prices to go higher after they are already high enough—just as they go lower in a panic after they are plainly seen to be low enough. When prices get above the natural level, a well-judged short interest begins to appear. These shorts are right, but right too soon. In a genuine bull market they are nearly always driven to cover by a further rise, which is, from any common sense standpoint, unreasonable. A riot of pyramided margins drives the sane and calculating short seller temporarily to shelter. A psychological influence of a much wider scope also operates to help a bull market along to unreasonable heights. Such a market is usually accompanied by rising prices in all lines of business and these rising prices always create, in the minds of business men, the impression that their various enterprises are more profitable than is really the case. One reason for this false impression is found in stocks of goods on hand. Take the wholesale grocer, for example, carrying a stock of goods which inventories $10,000 in January, 1909. On that date Bradstreet’s index of commodity prices stood at 8.26. In January, 1910, Bradstreet’s index was 9.23. If the prices of the various articles included in this stock of groceries increased in the same ratio as Bradstreet’s list, and if the grocer had on hand exactly the same things, he would inventory them at about $11,168 in January, 1910. He made an additional profit of $1,168 during the year without any effort, and probably without any calculation, on his part. But this profit was only apparent, not real; for he could not buy any more with the $11,168 in January, 1910, than he could have bought with the $10,000 in January, 1909. He is deceived into supposing himself richer than he really is, and this false idea leads to a gradual growth of extravagance and speculation in every line of business and every walk of life.