nce visited the stock exchange in New York. He could not
help but think how like unto it was the betting ring with its horde of
pushing, struggling humans, as he wormed his way in, following close on
Old Bill's heels. There was a sort of mechanical aptness in his leader's
way of displacing men in his path. Mortimer realized that but for his
guide he never would have penetrated beyond the outer shell of the
buzzing hive. Even then he hoped that he might, by the direction of
chance, see Alan Porter. The issue at stake, and the prospect of its
solution through his unwonted betting endeavor, was dispelling his
inherent antipathy to gambling; he was becoming like one drunken with
the glamour of a new delight; his continued desire to discover young
Porter was more a rendering of tithes to his former god of chastity
which he was about to shatter.

Two days before betting on horse races was a crime of indecent enormity;
now it seemed absolutely excusable, justified, almost something to be
eagerly approved of. Their ingress, though strenuous, was devoid of
rapidity; so, beyond much bracing of muscles, there was little to take
cognizance of except his own mental transformation. Once he had known a
minister, a very good man indeed, who had been forced into a fight. The
clergyman had acted his unwilling part with such muscular enthusiasm
that his brutish opponent had been reduced to the lethargic condition of
inanimate pulp. Mortimer compared his present exploit with that of his
friend, the clergyman; he felt that he was very much in the same boat.
He was eager to have the bet made and get out into the less congested
air; his companions of the betting ring were not men to tarry among in
the way of moral recreation.

The mob agitated itself in waves; sometimes he and Old Bill were carried
almost across the building by the wash of the living tide as it set in
that direction; then an undertow would sweep them back again close
to their starting point. The individual members of the throng were
certainly possessed of innumerable elbows, and large jointed knees, and
boots that were forever raking at his heels or his corns. They seemed
taller, too, than men in the open; strive as he might he could see
nothing--nothing but heads that topped him in every direction. Once the
proud possessor of a dreadful cigar of unrivaled odor became sandwiched
between him and his fellow-pilgrim; he was down wind from the weed and
its worker, and the result