engers hurried to and fro in confused and apparently
aimless directions. Brokers whose supply of American Match had been
apparently exhausted on the previous day now appeared on 'change bright
and early, and at the clang of the gong began to offer the stock in
sizable lots of from two hundred to five hundred shares. The agents of
Hull & Stackpole were in the market, of course, in the front rank of
the scrambling, yelling throng, taking up whatever stock appeared at
the price they were hoping to maintain. The two promoters were in
touch by 'phone and wire not only with those various important
personages whom they had induced to enter upon this bull campaign, but
with their various clerks and agents on 'change. Naturally, under the
circumstances both were in a gloomy frame of mind. This game was no
longer moving in those large, easy sweeps which characterize the more
favorable aspects of high finance. Sad to relate, as in all the
troubled flumes of life where vast currents are compressed in narrow,
tortuous spaces, these two men were now concerned chiefly with the
momentary care of small but none the less heartbreaking burdens. Where
to find fifty thousand to take care of this or that burden of stock
which was momentarily falling upon them? They were as two men called
upon, with their limited hands and strength, to seal up the
ever-increasing crevices of a dike beyond which raged a mountainous and
destructive sea.

At eleven o'clock Mr. Phineas Hull rose from the chair which sat before
his solid mahogany desk, and confronted his partner.

"I'll tell you, Ben," he said, "I'm afraid we can't make this. We've
hypothecated so much of this stock around town that we can't possibly
tell who's doing what. I know as well as I'm standing on this floor
that some one, I can't say which one, is selling us out. You don't
suppose it could be Cowperwood or any of those people he sent to us, do
you?"

Stackpole, worn by his experiences of the past few weeks, was inclined
to be irritable.

"How should I know, Phineas?" he inquired, scowling in troubled
thought. "I don't think so. I didn't notice any signs that they were
interested in stock-gambling. Anyhow, we had to have the money in some
form. Any one of the whole crowd is apt to get frightened now at any
moment and throw the whole thing over. We're in a tight place, that's
plain."

For the fortieth time he plucked at a too-tight collar and pulled up
his shirt-sleeve