against a gang--a gang of cutthroats. Those Bears
have got millions and millions back of them. You don't suppose, do you,
that old man Crookes, or Kenniston, or little Sweeny, or all that lot
would give you one little bit of a chance for your life if they got a
grip on you. Cover your shorts if you want to, but, for God's sake,
don't begin to buy in the same breath. You wait a while. If this market
has touched bottom, we'll be able to tell in a few days. I'll admit,
for the sake of argument, that just now there's a pause. But nobody can
tell whether it will turn up or down yet. Now's the time to be
conservative, to play it cautious."

"If I was conservative and cautious," answered Jadwin, "I wouldn't be
in this game at all. I'd be buying U.S. four percents. That's the big
mistake so many of these fellows down here make. They go into a game
where the only ones who can possibly win are the ones who take big
chances, and then they try to play the thing cautiously. If I wait a
while till the market turns up and everybody is buying, how am I any
the better off? No, sir, you buy the September option for me
to-morrow--five hundred thousand bushels. I deposited the margin to
your credit in the Illinois Trust this afternoon."

There was a long silence. Gretry spun a ball between his fingers,
top-fashion.

"Well," he said at last, hesitatingly, "well--I don't know, J.--you are
either Napoleonic--or--or a colossal idiot."

"Neither one nor the other, Samuel. I'm just using a little common
sense.... Is it your shot?"

"I'm blessed if I know."

"Well, we'll start a new game. Sam, I'll give you six balls and beat
you in"--he looked at his watch--"beat you before half-past nine."

"For a dollar?"

"I never bet, Sam, and you know it."

Half an hour later Jadwin said:

"Shall we go down and join the ladies? Don't put out your cigar. That's
one bargain I made with Laura before we moved in here--that smoking was
allowable everywhere."

"Room enough, I guess," observed the broker, as the two stepped into
the elevator. "How many rooms have you got here, by the way?"

"Upon my word, I don't know," answered Jadwin. "I discovered a new one
yesterday. Fact. I was having a look around, and I came out into a
little kind of smoking-room or other that, I swear, I'd never seen
before. I had to get Laura to tell me about it."

The elevator sank to the lower floor, and Jadwin and the broker stepped
out into the main hallway. From the