As a matter of fact I never would have been able to sell the bank’s hundred thousand shares if Wolff and the rest had not passed around those red-hot bull tips of theirs. If I had worked as I usually do--that is, in a logical natural way--I would have had to take whatever price I could get. I told you we ran into a declining market. The only way to sell on such a market is to sell not necessarily recklessly but really regardless of price. No other way was possible, but I suppose they do not believe this. They are still angry. I am not. Getting angry doesn’t get a man anywhere. More than once it has been borne in on me that a speculator who loses his temper is a goner. In this case there was no aftermath to the grouches. But I’ll tell you something curious. One day Mrs. Livingston went to a dressmaker who had been warmly recommended to her. The woman was competent and obliging and had a very pleasing personality. At the third or fourth visit, when the dressmaker felt less like a stranger, she said to Mrs. Livingston: “I hope Mr. Livingston puts up Consolidated Stove soon. We have some that we bought because we were told he was going to put it up, and we’d always heard that he was very successful in all his deals.” I tell you it isn’t pleasant to think that innocent people may have lost money following a tip of that sort. Perhaps you understand why I never give any myself. That dressmaker made me feel that in the matter of grievances I had a real one against Wolff. _XXIII_ Speculation in stocks will never disappear. It isn’t desirable that it should. It cannot be checked by warnings as to its dangers. You cannot prevent people from guessing wrong no matter how able or how experienced they may be. Carefully laid plans will miscarry because the unexpected and even the unexpectable will happen. Disaster may come from a convulsion of nature or from the weather, from your own greed or from some man’s vanity; from fear or from uncontrolled hope. But apart from what one might call his natural foes, a speculator in stocks has to contend with certain practices or abuses that are indefensible normally as well as commercially. As I look back and consider what were the common practices twenty-five years ago when I first came to Wall Street, I have to admit that there have been many changes for the better. The old-fashioned bucket shops are gone, though bucketeering “brokerage” houses still prosper at the expense of men and women who persist in playing the game of getting rich quick. The Stock Exchange is doing excellent work not only in getting after these out-and-out swindlers but in insisting upon strict adherence to its rules by its own members. Many wholesome regulations and restrictions are now strictly enforced but there is still room for improvement. The ingrained conservatism of Wall Street rather than ethical callousness is to blame for the persistence of certain abuses.