Wilson P. Treadwell smiled pleasantly. He was a tall, slender man with a serious look. The firm did not desire new accounts, for there was already more business than could be handled. They were the busiest and the best-known stock brokers in the United States. But the colonel’s friends were welcome, always. “I’m very glad to meet Mr. Carey,” said Wilson Treadwell. The firm had some very youthful customers; but their means were in inverse ratio to their years. “I think,” said the colonel, “that we had better buy some Easton & Allentown for him.” He was smiling; he generally did. Moreover, he was thinking of his brother’s mistaken impression of the new customer. “That is a good idea,” assented Wilson. “You ought to put in your order at once. The stock is going up very fast, Mr. Carey.” “Well, young man, give him your margin and let him buy you as much as he thinks best,” said the colonel. “Five thousand shares?” suggested Wilson Treadwell. Colonel Treadwell chuckled. “Five thousand? A paltry five?” “Well, fifty thousand if he wants them, and you guarantee his account,” said his brother with a smile. “I guess,” said the leader of the stock market, slowly, “that you had better begin with one hundred shares.” Then Wilson, who knew his brother thoroughly, said “Oh!” and smiled and gave an order to a clerk to buy one hundred shares of Easton & Allentown Railroad stock at the “market” or prevailing price, for Mr. Carey, and took the boy’s two hundred and ten dollars with the utmost gravity. The smallest Stock Exchange house would not accept such a pitiful account. Treadwell & Co. being the largest, would and did. The colonel shook hands with young Carey, whose father had once edited a country newspaper, but who had never been an intimate friend, told him to “Come again, any time,” and went back to his accomplices. Easton & Allentown stock was the “feature” of the market that week and the next. Ten days after Carey had bought his hundred shares at 94 the stock sold at 106. The young man went into the office of Treadwell & Co., on the eleventh day. He knew he had made a great deal of money—more than he had ever thought of having at his age—but he did not know what to do now. He heard one man say to another: “Take profits? Not at this price. E. & A. is sure to go to 115.” Carey figured that if he waited for the stock to sell at 115, he would make nearly a thousand dollars more. “There is no use of being a blamed hog,” the man continued, with picturesque emphasis, “but where in blazes is the sense of throwing away that much money by selling out too soon? Limit your losses and let your profits run.”