En aktiemäklares minnen

Jeg kom i arbejde, lige da jeg var gået ud af folkeskolen.

I went to work when I was just out of grammar school.

Jeg fik job som kurstavledreng på et børsmæglerkontor.

I got a job as quotation-board boy in a stock-brokerage office.

Jeg var hurtig til tal.

I was quick at figures.

I skolen tog jeg tre års regning på ét.

At school I did three years of arithmetic in one.

Jeg var særlig god til hovedregning.

I was particularly good at mental arithmetic.

Som kurstavledreng skrev jeg tallene op på den store tavle i kundernes

As quotation-board boy I posted the numbers on the big board in the customers’

lokale.

room.

En af kunderne sad som regel ved telegrafapparatet og råbte kurserne op.

One of the customers usually sat by the ticker and called out the prices.

De kunne ikke komme for hurtigt for mig.

They couldn’t come too fast for me.

Jeg har altid kunnet huske tal.

I have always remembered figures.

Det var slet ikke svært.

No trouble at all.

Der var masser af andre ansatte på det kontor.

There were plenty of other employes in that office.

Jeg blev naturligvis venner med de andre fyre,

Of course I made friends with the other fellows,

men det arbejde, jeg udførte,

but the work I did,

når markedet var livligt,

if the market was active,

holdt mig alt for travlt beskæftiget fra klokken ti om formiddagen

kept me too busy from ten A.M.

til klokken tre om eftermiddagen

to three P.M.

til at jeg kunne snakke ret meget.

to let me do much talking.

Jeg bryder mig ikke om det,

I don’t care for it,

i hvert fald ikke

anyhow,

i arbejdstiden.

during business hours.

Men et travlt marked forhindrede mig ikke i at tænke over arbejdet.

But a busy market did not keep me from thinking about the work.

For mig betød de kurser ikke aktiekurser,

Those quotations did not represent prices of stocks to me,

så og så mange dollars pr. aktie.

so many dollars per share.

De var tal.

They were numbers.

Selvfølgelig

Of course,

betød de noget.

they meant something.

De ændrede sig hele tiden.

They were always changing.

Det var det eneste, jeg skulle interessere mig for —

It was all I had to be interested in —

ændringerne.

the changes.

Hvorfor ændrede de sig?

Why did they change?

Det vidste jeg ikke.

I didn’t know.

Jeg var ligeglad.

I didn’t care.

Jeg tænkte ikke over det.

I didn’t think about that.

Jeg så bare, at de ændrede sig.

I simply saw that they changed.

Det var alt, hvad jeg skulle tænke på fem timer hver dag og to om lørdagen:

That was all I had to think about five hours every day and two on Saturdays:

at de hele tiden ændrede sig.

that they were always changing.