Overview

Henry Merrill tries to buck the stock market game and grow rich. The story starts two months before the market crash. Henry, who works in the local soap works, is so heavy an investor in an oil stock that he gets in on the ground floor and is made a thirty-sixth vice president of the corporation. He tells his friends of a good thing. The friends jump at the chance to profit. In the Second Act, after Henry's daughter has eloped, the friends are presenting Henry with a diamond-studded wrist watch, as token of their esteem, when news comes of the Wall Street upheaval and all are wiped out. But Henry has invented a machine for labelling soap which he sells for a large price, so everything turns out all right!