te for War had forwarded an
ultimatum to the Porte, and that diplomatic relations between Turkey
and England were about to be suspended.

All in a moment the entire Floor seemed to be talking of nothing else,
and on the outskirts of every group one could overhear the words:
"Seizure of custom house," "ultimatum," "Eastern question,"
"Higgins-Pasha incident." It was the rumour of the day, and before very
long the pit traders began to receive a multitude of despatches
countermanding selling orders, and directing them not to close out
trades under certain very advanced quotations. The brokers began wiring
their principals that the market promised to open strong and bullish.

But by now it was near to half-past nine. From the Western Union desks
the clicking of the throng of instruments rose into the air in an
incessant staccato stridulation. The messenger boys ran back and forth
at top speed, dodging in and out among the knots of clerks and traders,
colliding with one another, and without interruption intoning the names
of those for whom they had despatches. The throng of traders
concentrated upon the pits, and at every moment the deep-toned hum of
the murmur of many voices swelled like the rising of a tide.

And at this moment, as Landry stood on the rim of the wheat pit,
looking towards the telephone booth under the visitors' gallery, he saw
the osseous, stoop-shouldered figure of Mr. Cressler--who, though he
never speculated, appeared regularly upon the Board every
morning--making his way towards one of the windows in the front of the
building. His pocket was full of wheat, taken from a bag on one of the
sample tables. Opening the window, he scattered the grain upon the
sill, and stood for a long moment absorbed and interested in the
dazzling flutter of the wings of innumerable pigeons who came to settle
upon the ledge, pecking the grain with little, nervous, fastidious taps
of their yellow beaks.

Landry cast a glance at the clock beneath the dial on the wall behind
him. It was twenty-five minutes after nine. He stood in his accustomed
place on the north side of the Wheat Pit, upon the topmost stair. The
Pit was full. Below him and on either side of him were the brokers,
scalpers, and traders--Hirsch, Semple, Kelly, Winston, and Rusbridge.
The redoubtable Leaycraft, who, bidding for himself, was supposed to
hold the longest line of May wheat of any one man in the Pit, the
insignificant Grossmann, a Jew who wore a f