ON the Monday before Thanksgiving, Presbury went
up to New York to look after one of the little
speculations in Wall Street at which he was so clever.
Throughout the civilized world nowadays, and especially
in and near the great capitals of finance, there is a class
of men and women of small capital and of a character
in which are combined iron self-restraint, rabbit-like
timidity, and great shrewdness, who make often a not
inconsiderable income by gambling in stocks. They
buy only when the market is advancing strongly; they
sell as soon as they have gained the scantest margin of
profit. They never permit themselves to be tempted by
the most absolute certainty of larger gains. They will
let weeks, months even, go by without once risking a
dollar. They wait until they simply cannot lose. Tens
of thousands every year try to join this class. All but
the few soon succumb to the hourly dazzling temptations
the big gamblers dangle before the eyes of the little
gamblers to lure them within reach of the merciless
shears.

Presbury had for many years added from one to ten
thousand a year to his income by this form of gambling,
success at which is in itself sufficient to stamp a man as
infinitely little of soul. On that Monday he, venturing
for the first time in six months, returned to Hanging
Rock on the three-thirty train the richer by two hundred
and fifty dollars--as large a ``killing'' as he had ever
made in any single day, one large enough to elevate him
to the rank of prince among the ``sure-thing snides.''