The problem that I knew would take a great deal of hard thinking to solve was thus solved for me by an accident. If the _World_ had not published that article I never would have been able to dispose of my line without sacrificing the greater portion of my paper profits. Selling one hundred and forty thousand bales of cotton without sending the price down was a trick beyond my powers. But the _World_ story turned it for me very nicely. Why the _World_ published it I cannot tell you. I never knew. I suppose the writer was tipped off by some friend in the cotton market and he thought he was printing a scoop. I didn’t see him or anybody from the _World_. I didn’t know it was printed that morning until after nine o’clock; and if it had not been for my friend calling my attention to it I would not have know it then. Without it I wouldn’t have had a market _big_ enough to unload in. That is one trouble about trading on a large scale. You cannot sneak out as you can when you pike along. You cannot always sell out when you wish or when you think it wise. You have to get out when you can; when you have a market that will absorb your entire line. Failure to grasp the opportunity to get out may cost you millions. You cannot hesitate. If you do you are lost. Neither can you try stunts like running up the price on the bears by means of competitive buying, for you may thereby reduce the absorbing capacity. And I want to tell you that perceiving your opportunity is not as easy as it sounds. A man must be on the lookout so alertly that when his chance sticks in its head at his door he must grab it. Of course not everybody knew about my fortunate accident. In Wall Street, and, for that matter, everywhere else, any accident that makes big money for a man is regarded with suspicion. When the accident is unprofitable it is never considered an accident but the logical outcome of your hoggishness or of the swelled head. But when there is a profit they call it loot and talk about how well unscrupulousness fares, and how ill conservatism and decency. It was not only the _evil-minded shorts_ smarting under punishment brought about by their own recklessness who accused me of having deliberately planned the coup. Other people thought the same thing. One of the biggest men in cotton in the entire world met me a day or two later and said, “That was certainly the slickest deal you ever put over, Livingston. I was wondering how much you were going to lose when you came to market that line of yours. You knew this market was not big enough to take more than fifty or sixty thousand bales without selling off, and how you were going to work off the rest and not lose all your paper profits was beginning to interest me. I didn’t think of your scheme. It certainly was slick.” “I had nothing to do with it,” I assured him as earnestly as I could. But all he did was to repeat: “Mighty slick, my boy. Mighty slick! Don’t be so modest!”