in the neighborhood of Fargo, or that Jay Hawker had been
observed that morning hurrying to his brokers with a scowl on his face
and his hat pulled over his eyes. The young man sold what he did not
have, and the other young man bought what he will never get.

This is business of the higher and almost immaterial sort, and has
an element of faith in it, and, as one may say, belief in the unseen,
whence it is characterized by an expression--"dealing in futures." It
is not gambling, for there are no "chips" used, and there is no
roulette-table in sight, and there are no piles of money or piles of
anything else. It is not a lottery, for there is no wheel at which
impartial men preside to insure honest drawings, and there are no
predestined blanks and prizes, and the man who buys and the man who
sells can do something, either in the newspapers or elsewhere, to affect
the worth of the investment, whereas in a lottery everything depends
upon the turn of the blind wheel. It is not necessary, however, to
attempt a defense of the Chamber. It is one of the recognized ways of
becoming important and powerful in this world. The privilege of the
floor--a seat, as it is called--in this temple of the god Chance to be
Rich is worth more than a seat in the Cabinet. It is not only true that
a fortune may be made here in a day or lost here in a day, but that a
nod and a wink here enable people all over the land to ruin others
or ruin themselves with celerity. The relation of the Chamber to the
business of the country is therefore evident. If an earthquake should
suddenly sink this temple and all its votaries into the bowels of the
earth, with all its nervousness and all its electricity, it is appalling
to think what would become of the business of the country.

Not far from this vast Chamber, where great financial operations are
conducted on the highest principles of honor, and with the strictest
regard to the Marquis of Dusenbury's rules, there is another less
pretentious Chamber, known as "open," a sort of overflow meeting. Those
who have not quite left hope behind can go in here. Here are the tickers
communicating with the Chamber, tended by lads, who transfer the figures
to big blackboards on the wall. In front of these boards sit, from
morning to night, rows, perhaps relays, of men intently or listlessly
watching the figures. Many of them, who seldom make a sign, come here
from habit; they have nowhere else to go. Some of them were once