When we abandoned the brokerage business to become importers and dealers, our relations with our London friends changed. We bought of them all that we imported and they sold to no other American firm. If they bought in this market, their orders came to us. With their movements we worked in sympathy. If they advanced the price in London we did the same in New York and vice-versa. We were in constant cable communication, informing each other from hour to hour of the market movements. There were times, however, when they entered into market campaigns that extended over a long period. In these we did not fully participate. Our market was too narrow to permit of it, and it involved the locking up of too much capital. In August, in accordance with our London advices, we began quietly to accumulate stock in expectation of a much higher market late in the fall. We remained persistent though quiet buyers until October, meanwhile doing our utmost to hold the market down that we might buy cheaply. We looked to see the operation completed by the end of the year, with a very handsome profit. Early in October our stock was sufficiently large to make it an object to advance the price, and our buying became more aggressive. Just when the value began to rise, the London market halted. This at once checked the advance in New York and for the time being we had a waiting game on our hands, it being quite impossible for our market to advance above the London parity and remain there. We must wait for London. After a moderate reaction London again advanced and we bought here freely everything that was offered. Again London halted. All through November conditions were the same; a few days of strength, then a reaction, meanwhile our stock had been largely increased. At the beginning of December our advices from London led us to believe that all hesitation would now disappear and the market rapidly advance. Our holdings were already enormous, but we had no reason to doubt the success of our operations, and continued our purchases. CHAPTER XXXVI THE SHIP FOUNDERS December 17, 1895, will ever remain in the memory of business men, at least of this generation, as the day when President Cleveland transmitted to Congress his Venezuelan message, a piece of jingoism which was entirely uncalled for and resulted in disastrous consequences to the commercial interests of the country. It came as a flash of lightning from a clear sky. It was the direct and immediate cause of a stock and money panic in Wall Street which, while it added largely to the wealth of certain individuals, brought disaster and ruin to many. If, my reader, you do not already know, ask any well-informed stock broker of that period who it was that sold the market short on an enormous scale during the few days prior to the message, and when he tells you the name draw your own deductions. You will not require to be a Sherlock Holmes.