any incentive to compete, and that fiercer rivalry was to be found from boys who had, compaxed with himself, relatively little.
In 1915, a craze for collecting match - box labels hit Sayre Academy.
William observed this frenzy for a week with great interest but did not join in. Within a few days, common labels were changing hands at a dime, while rarities commanded as much as fifty cents. William considered the situation and decided to become not a collector, but a dealer.
On the following Saturday, he went to Leavitt and Pearce, one of the largest tobacconists in Boston, and spent the afternoon taking down the names and addresses of all the major match - box manufacturers throughout the world, making a special note of those who were not at war. He in - vested five dollars in notepaper, envelopes and stamps, and wrote to the chairman or president of every company he had listed. His letter was simple despite having been rewritten seven times.
Dear Mr. Chairman or Mr. President, I am a dedicated collector of match - box labels, but I cannot afford to buy all the matches. My pocket money is only one dollar a week, but I enclose a three - cent stamp for postage to prove that I am serious about my hobby. I am sorry to bother you personally, but yours was the only name I could find to write to.
Your friend, William Kane (aged 9) P.S. Yours are one of my favourites.
Within three weeks, William had a fifty - five per cent reply which yielded one hundred and seventy - eight different labels. Nearly all his correspondents also returned the threecent stamp, as William had anticipated they would.
During the next seven days, William set up a market in labels within the school, always checking what he could sell at even before he had made a purchase. He noticed that some boys showed no interest in the rarity of the match - box label, only in its looks, and with them he made quick ex - changes to obtain rare trophies for the more discerning collectors. After a further two weeks of buying and selling he sensed that the market was reaching its zenith and that if he were not careful, with the holidays fast approaching, interest might be~nn to die off. With much trumpeted advance publicity in the form of a printed handout which cost him a further half cent a sheet, placed on every boy's desk,, WilEarn announced that he would be holding an auction of his match - box labels, all two hundred and eleven of them. The auction took place in the school washroom during the lunch hour and was better attended than most school hockey games.
The result was that William netted fifty - seven dollars thirty - two cents, a profit of fifty - two dollars thirty - two cents on his original investment. William put twenty - five dollars on deposit with the bank at two and a half per cent, bought himself a camera for eleven dollars, gave five dollars to the Young Men's Christian Association, who had broadened their activities to help the new flood of immigrants, bought his mother some Aowers, and put the remaining few dollars into his pock t. The market in match - box labels collapsed even before Ne school term ended. It was to be the firstof many such occasions that William got out at the top of'the market. The grandmothers would have been proud of him; it was not unlike the way their husbands had made their fortunes in the panic of 1873.
When the holidays came, William could not resist finding out if it was possible to obtain a better return on his invested capital than the two and a half per cent yielded by his savings account. For the next three months he invested - again through Grandmother Kane - in stocks highly recommended by the Wall Street journal. During the next term at school he lost over half of the money he had made on the match - box labels. It was the only time in his life that he relied on the expertise of the Wall Street journal, or on information available at any street corner.
Angry with his loss of over twenty dollars William decided that it must be recouped during the Easter holidays. On arriving home he worked out which parties and functions his mother would expect him to attend, and found he was left with only fourteen free