Then we took our "Bradstreet's" and at random selected the names of five hundred firms, scattered over the United States, rating not less than five hundred thousand dollars. The letters were addressed to the senior partner of each firm. Before the end of the year nearly two hundred of those men were on our books. Every one of them made money. This constituency was sufficient for the time being. I had in mind something on a much larger scale, the forming of a syndicate; but that is another story and belongs to a later period. Toward the later part of the year there was a falling off in our trade with the customers, owing to a period of dullness in the manufacturing industries; but what we lost in this way was more than offset by the gain accruing from the business with speculative clients. On December 3lst, I had the satisfaction of knowing that for the first time my profits for a single year exceeded thirty thousand dollars. In my home life there had been nothing to mar in the slightest degree its serenity and delight; indeed, our happiness had been increased on the ninth of June by the arrival of our third daughter. CHAPTER XX RETROGRESSION Although the conditions of general business were unsatisfactory at the beginning of 1885 and I had much doubt of the year proving as profitable as the one previous, I never dreamed of such a falling off as actually occurred. Our legitimate trade, that carried on with dealers and consumers, we thought would be poor for some months, as it had been over-done, and all our customers were well supplied with spot stock, as also contracts for future delivery; but the speculative element we relied on to compensate us for this. Our clients had done well and we expected they would continue their operations. We did not in our calculations make allowance for the fact that these men were all in active business. As a rule, such men do not go into outside matters when their own business is dull or unprofitable. It is in good times, when they are making money, that they enter the speculative field. Before the winter was over our books were entirely cleared of speculative contracts. We thought of making efforts to secure new customers but decided it would at that time be useless, for if men who knew the business and had made money at it were unwilling to go on, it was hardly possible to enlist the interest of people who knew nothing about it. Month after month I saw the business decrease, but took it philosophically. I could afford to wait for better times and meanwhile did not worry, knowing that we were getting more than our share of what business there was. These dull times were not without their compensation.