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transaction is closed--say, in a week. This is splendid, for it is earning money, he thinks (stock gamblers always speak of earning money, just as racing men speak of bookmaking as if it were a respectable trade or profession), at the rate of 1,000/. a year. He now invests his 20/., as cover on 2,000/., in some other stock, either as buyer or seller, paying Il. Ss. as brokerage. This time he is not
so fortunate; the stock moves the wrong way, and in the course, say, of another week his 20/. cover is forfeited. But, depending on a change of luck, and also feeling (as every gambler does) that he is essentially a lucky man, however at times fate may frown on him, he invests 10/. as cover, paying 12s. 6d. as brokerage on 1,0001., winning in a week 20/. He invests--this wild kind of speculation may be pleasingly called investment--a sum of 15/. as cover, which in another week is forfeited, the brokerage being in this case 18s. 9d. He invests 16/. as cover, paying II. brokerage, and wins 16l., in a week. He next invests 16l. again, paying 11. again for brokerage, and forfeits his cover. Here we leave him, so far as further speculation is concerned, though it is very unlikely that he would stop his speculative system here. Let us consider what he has accomplished in the six weeks (we took always the same period of time, so that the summing-up might be simplified--about six weeks for the six transactions would have served equally well).
He has won 20l., 20l, and 16l.; he has lost 20l., 151., and 16/. He has gained thus in all 51. He has paid in brokerage 12s. 6d., Il. 5s., 12s. 6d., 18s. 9d., 1l., and l/.--making a total of 51. 8s. 9d. Therefore he is out of pocket 8s. 9d.; he has lost six weeks' use of the sum of 10/. first invested, to say nothing of a loss of the use of 5/. more during the third week; and he has undergone a good deal of worry and anxiety. Yet he has had better luck than he had a right to expect; for, on the whole, he has had a balance of gain over loss, so
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