He stopped talking to concentrate on the tape and the tipster approached to see what the deacon saw, for the old man was very foxy. While he was looking over the deacon’s shoulder a clerk came in with a slip, obviously the report from Frank. The deacon barely glanced at it. He had seen on the tape how his order had been executed. It made him say to the clerk, “Tell him to sell another ten thousand Sugar.” “Deacon, I swear to you that they really are buying the stock!” “Did Mr. Havemeyer tell you?” asked the deacon quietly. “Of course not! He never tells anybody anything. He would not bat an eyelid to help his best friend make a nickel. But I know this is true.” “Do not allow yourself to become excited, my friend.” And the deacon held up a hand. He was looking at the tape. The tip-bringer said, bitterly: “If I had known you were going to do the opposite of what I expected I’d never have wasted your time or mine. But I am not going to feel glad when you cover that stock at an awful loss. I’m sorry for you, deacon. Honest! If you’ll excuse me I’ll go elsewhere and act on my own information.” “I’m acting on it. I think I know a little about the market; not as much, perhaps, as you and your friend H. O. Havemeyer, but still a little. What I am doing is what my experience tells me is the wise thing to do with that information you brought me. After a man has been in Wall Street as long as I have he is grateful for anybody who feels sorry for him. Remain calm, my friend.” The man just stared at the deacon, for whose judgment and nerve he had great respect. Pretty soon the clerk came in again and handed a report to the deacon, who looked at it and said: “Now tell him to buy thirty thousand Sugar. Thirty thousand!” The clerk hurried away and the tipster just grunted and looked at the old gray fox. “My friend,” the deacon explained kindly, “I did not doubt that you were telling me the truth as you saw it. But even if I had heard H. O. Havemeyer tell you himself, I still would have acted as I did. For there was only one way to find out if anybody was buying the stock in the way you said H. O. Havemeyer and his friends were buying it, and that was to do what I did. The first ten thousand shares went fairly easily. It was not quite conclusive. But the second ten thousand was absorbed by a market that did not stop rising. The way the twenty thousand shares were taken by somebody proved to me that somebody was in truth willing to take all the stock that was offered. It doesn’t particularly matter at this point who that particular somebody may be. So I have covered my shorts and am long ten thousand shares, and I think that your information was good as far as it went.” “And how far does it go?” asked the tipster. “You have five hundred shares in this office at the average price of the ten thousand shares,” said the deacon. “Good day, my friend. Be calm the next time.”