In due time this retired merchant secured a desk in a brokerage office and undertook to study the stock market systematically at close range, and to reduce some of his theories to actual practice. He did not launch into this new venture as one would plunge into a cold bath; he patiently watched the action of the market from day to day, until stocks declined to a point where it seemed safe to begin buying on a scale down. Meanwhile he continued to study stock market charts and conditions--charts with double bottoms, double tops, pyramids and all such enlightening information--about past performances. At length he bought a few hundred shares of selected stocks, depositing bonds as margin--ample margin of fifty points or more. Prices reacted a little further, and in keeping with his motto, which was--“Buy on the decline, when the public is getting out, and sell on the rise when the public is getting in,” he increased his holdings at every two or three points decline. In the course of time the market faced about, stocks began to recover, and in a few weeks he had the satisfaction of seeing his plans work out successfully in experiment, with a net gain of enough to cover interest on his investment for more than four years. According to precedent a temporary reaction was due; therefore, like most wary beginners, he sold out and cashed in his profits. In his exhaustive study of stock market psychology he had learned that while it is the practice of inexperienced traders to take small profits on stocks in a rising market, it is also their custom to buy the stocks back again at much higher figures, instead of waiting for prices to decline. This was one of the danger pits charted on his course of action; one of the many against which he had built up mental fortifications, strong enough in seasons of peace and calm, but in most people easily destructible by the baffling influences of stock market speculation.