hing, get out of it. Haven't I got enough to bother me?"

"Oh, say! Say, hold on, hold on, old man," remonstrated the broker, in
an injured voice. "You're terrible touchy sometimes, J., of late. I was
only trying to look ahead a little. Don't think I want to back out. You
ought to know me by this time, J."

"There, there, I'm sorry, Sam," Jadwin hastened to answer, getting up
and shaking the other by the shoulder. "I am touchy these days. There's
so many things to think of, and all at the same time. I do get nervous.
I never slept one little wink last night--and you know the night before
I didn't turn in till two in the morning."

"Lord, you go swearing and damning 'round here like a pirate sometimes,
J.," Gretry went on. "I haven't heard you cuss before in twenty years.
Look out, now, that I don't tell on you to your Sunday-school
superintendents."

"I guess they'd cuss, too," observed Jadwin, "if they were long forty
million wheat, and had to know just where every hatful of it was every
second of the time. It was all very well for us to whoop about swinging
a corner that afternoon in your office. But the real thing--well, you
don't have any trouble keeping awake. Do you suppose we can keep the
fact of our corner dark much longer?"

"I fancy not," answered the broker, putting on his hat and thrusting
his papers into his breast pocket. "If we bust Crookes, it'll come
out--and it won't matter then. I think we've got all the shorts there
are."

"I'm laying particularly for Dave Scannel," remarked Jadwin. "I hope
he's in up to his neck, and if he is, by the Great Horn Spoon, I'll
bankrupt him, or my name is not Jadwin! I'll wring him bone-dry. If I
once get a twist of that rat, I won't leave him hide nor hair to cover
the wart he calls his heart."

"Why, what all has Scannel ever done to you?" demanded the other,
amazed.

"Nothing, but I found out the other day that old Hargus--poor old,
broken-backed, half-starved Hargus--I found out that it was Scannel
that ruined him. Hargus and he had a big deal on, you know--oh, ages
ago--and Scannel sold out on him. Great God, it was the dirtiest,
damnedest treachery I ever heard of! Scannel made his pile, and what's
Hargus now? Why, he's a scarecrow. And he has a little niece that he
supports, heaven only knows how. I've seen her, and she's pretty as a
picture. Well, that's all right; I'm going to carry fifty thousand
wheat for Hargus, and I've got another scheme for him,