Notes
CHAPTER IX.
1
For the benefit of the uninitiated reader, we will explain the "game" more clearly. Harlem stock was selling at a high price, in consequence of the expected consolidation. Those who sold "short" at this time sold at the market price, which, as we have said, was high. By engaging to deliver at some future day, they expected to be able to buy the stock for little or nothing after the defeat of the bill, and then to demand for it the price for which they had sold it in the first place. Such a transaction was infamous, but would have enabled those engaged in it to realize immense sums by the difference in the price of the stock.