triumphantly, and it was not till long
afterward that Laura knew how near, for a few hours, he had been to
defeat.

And again the price of wheat declined. In the first week in April, at
the end of the third winter of Jadwin's married life, May wheat was
selling on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade at sixty-four, the
July option at sixty-five, the September at sixty-six and an eighth.
During February of the same year Jadwin had sold short five hundred
thousand bushels of May. He believed with Gretry and with the majority
of the professional traders that the price would go to sixty.

March passed without any further decline. All through this month and
through the first days of April Jadwin was unusually thoughtful. His
short wheat gave him no concern. He was now so rich that a mere
half-million bushels was not a matter for anxiety. It was the
"situation" that arrested his attention.

In some indefinable way, warned by that blessed sixth sense that had
made him the successful speculator he was, he felt that somewhere, at
some time during the course of the winter, a change had quietly,
gradually come about, that it was even then operating. The conditions
that had prevailed so consistently for three years, were they now to be
shifted a little? He did not know, he could not say. But in the plexus
of financial affairs in which he moved and lived he felt--a difference.

For one thing "times" were better, business was better. He could not
fail to see that trade was picking up. In dry goods, in hardware, in
manufactures there seemed to be a different spirit, and he could
imagine that it was a spirit of optimism. There, in that great city
where the Heart of the Nation beat, where the diseases of the times, or
the times' healthful activities were instantly reflected, Jadwin sensed
a more rapid, an easier, more untroubled run of life blood. All through
the Body of Things, money, the vital fluid, seemed to be flowing more
easily. People seemed richer, the banks were lending more, securities
seemed stable, solid. In New York, stocks were booming. Men were making
money--were making it, spending it, lending it, exchanging it. Instead
of being congested in vaults, safes, and cash boxes, tight, hard,
congealed, it was loosening, and, as it were, liquefying, so that it
spread and spread and permeated the entire community. The People had
money. They were willing to take chances.

So much for the financial conditions.

The sprin