.

"How's the Duluth job getting on?" asked Peterson, when Bannon had
finished, and was wiping his razor.

"All right--'most done. Just a little millwright work left, and some
cleaning up."

"There ain't any marine leg on the house, is there?"

"No."

"How big a house is it?"

"Eight hundred thousand bushels."

"That so? Ain't half as big as this one, is it?"

"Guess not. Built for the same people, though, Page & Company."

"They must be going in pretty heavy."

"They are. There's a good deal of talk about it. Some of the boys up at
the office say there's going to be fun with December wheat before they get
through with it. It's been going up pretty steadily since the end of
September--it was seventy-four and three-eighths Saturday in Minneapolis.
It ain't got up quite so high down here yet, but the boys say there's
going to be a lot of money in it for somebody."

"Be a kind of a good thing to get in on, eh?" said Peterson, cautiously.

"Maybe, for those that like to put money in wheat. I've got no money for
that sort of thing myself."

"Yes, of course," was Peterson's quick reply. "A fellow doesn't want to
run them kind o' chances. I don't believe in it myself."

"The fact's this,--and this is just between you and me, mind you; I don't
know anything about it, it's only what I think,--somebody's buying a lot
of December wheat, or the price wouldn't keep going up. And I've got a
notion that, whoever he is, it's Page & Company that's selling it to him.
That's just putting two and two together, you see. It's the real grain
that the Pages handle, and if they sell to a man it means that they're
going to make a mighty good try at unloading it on him and making him pay
for it. That's all I know about it. I see the Pages selling--or what looks
mighty like it--and I see them beginning to look around and talk on the
quiet about crowding things a little on their new houses, and it just
strikes me that there's likely to be a devil of a lot of wheat coming into
Chicago before the year runs out; and if that's so, why, there's got to be
a place to put it when it gets here."

"Do they have to have an elevator to put it in?" asked Peterson. "Can't
they deliver it in the cars? I don't know much about that side of the
business."

"I should say not. The Board of Trade won't recognize grain as delivered
until it has been inspected and stored in a registered house."

"When would the house have to be ready?"

"Well, if I