The next day the general market went up some more and I heard nothing but cheerful remarks from my friend. But I felt sure I had done right to sell UP., and I never get impatient when I feel I am right. What’s the sense? That afternoon Union Pacific stopped climbing, and toward the end of the day began to go off. Pretty soon it got down to a point below the level of the average of my three thousand shares. I felt more positive than ever that I was on the right side, and since I felt that way I naturally had to sell some more. So, toward the close, I sold an additional two thousand shares. There I was, short five thousand shares of UP. on a hunch. That was as much as I could sell in Harding’s office with the margin I had up. It was too much stock for me to be short of, on a vacation; so I gave up the vacation and returned to New York that very night. There was no telling what might happen and I thought I’d better be Johnny-on-the-spot. There I could move quickly if I had to. The next day we got the news of the San Francisco earthquake. It was an awful disaster. But the market opened down only a couple of points. _The bull forces were at work, and the public never is independently responsive to news. You see that all the time. If there is a solid bull foundation, for instance, whether or not what the papers call bull manipulation is going on the same time, certain news items fail to have the effect they would have if the Street was bearish._ It is all in the state of sentiment at the time. In this case the Street did not appraise the extent of the catastrophe because it didn’t wish to. Before the day was over prices came back. I was short five thousand shares. The blow had fallen, but my stock hadn’t. My hunch was of the first water, but my bank account wasn’t growing; not even on paper. The friend who had been in Atlantic City with me when I put out my short line in UP. was glad and sad about it. He told me: “That was some hunch, kid. But, say, when the talent and the money are all on the bull side what’s the use of bucking against them? They are bound to win out.” “Give them time,” I said. I meant prices. I wouldn’t cover because I knew the damage was enormous and the Union Pacific would be one of the worst sufferers. _But it was exasperating to see the blindness of the Street._ “Give ’em time and your skin will be where all the other bear hides are stretched out in the sun, drying,” he assured me. “What would you do?” I asked him. “Buy UP. on the strength of the millions of dollars of damage suffered by the Southern Pacific and other lines? Where are the earnings for dividends going to come from after they pay for all they’ve lost? The best you can say is that the trouble may not be as bad as it is painted. But is that a reason for buying the stocks of the roads chiefly affected? Answer me that.” But all my friend said was: “Yes, that listens fine. But I tell you, the market doesn’t agree with you. The tape doesn’t lie, does it?”