without any reaction, I watched it decline daily, by fractions,
until my margin was more than half exhausted.

My wife readily discovered there was something worrying me, though
I tried to conceal it, and in her sweet, loving way urged me to
tell her of my trouble. I put her off from day to day, hoping for
a change for the better.

Finally, when the price of the stock had reached a point where there
was hardly anything left of my five thousand dollars, the brokers
notified me I must make a further deposit or they would have to
sell me out. I could have borrowed the money, but I would not do
it, so the transaction was closed and my money lost.

As a matter of fact, which only goes to show what seems to the
small speculator the infernal ingenuity of the stock market, the
stock reacted almost immediately after I sold, and had I held on for
another two or three weeks, not only would I have saved my money,
but would have made in addition a very handsome profit.

Well, the money was gone--and now came the hardest part of it. I
had to tell my wife. I felt that I had wronged her confidence in
not telling her from the first, and this feeling hurt me far more
than the loss of the money.

After dinner that evening, fortunately we were spared from callers,
sitting on the lounge with my arm around her, I told her all. How
practically all I had in the world was gone, through an act of
foolishness I should never have committed.