s, for it was stifling, and he was coatless and
waistcoatless. Just then Mr. Hull's telephone bell rang--the one
connecting with the firm's private office on 'change, and the latter
jumped to seize the receiver.

"Yes?" he inquired, irritably.

"Two thousand shares of American offered at two-twenty! Shall I take
them?"

The man who was 'phoning was in sight of another man who stood at the
railing of the brokers' gallery overlooking "the pit," or central room
of the stock-exchange, and who instantly transferred any sign he might
receive to the man on the floor. So Mr. Hull's "yea" or "nay" would be
almost instantly transmuted into a cash transaction on 'change.

"What do you think of that?" asked Hull of Stackpole, putting his hand
over the receiver's mouth, his right eyelid drooping heavier than ever.
"Two thousand more to take up! Where d'you suppose they are coming
from? Tch!"

"Well, the bottom's out, that's all," replied Stackpole, heavily and
gutturally. "We can't do what we can't do. I say this, though:
support it at two-twenty until three o'clock. Then we'll figure up
where we stand and what we owe. And meanwhile I'll see what I can do.
If the banks won't help us and Arneel and that crowd want to get from
under, we'll fail, that's all; but not before I've had one more try, by
Jericho! They may not help us, but--"

Actually Mr. Stackpole did not see what was to be done unless Messrs.
Hand, Schryhart, Merrill, and Arneel were willing to risk much more
money, but it grieved and angered him to think he and Hull should be
thus left to sink without a sigh. He had tried Kaffrath, Videra, and
Bailey, but they were adamant. Thus cogitating, Stackpole put on his
wide-brimmed straw hat and went out. It was nearly ninety-six in the
shade. The granite and asphalt pavements of the down-town district
reflected a dry, Turkish-bath-room heat. There was no air to speak of.
The sky was a burning, milky blue, with the sun gleaming feverishly
upon the upper walls of the tall buildings.

Mr. Hand, in his seventh-story suite of offices in the Rookery
Building, was suffering from the heat, but much more from mental
perturbation. Though not a stingy or penurious man, it was still true
that of all earthly things he suffered most from a financial loss. How
often had he seen chance or miscalculation sweep apparently strong and
valiant men into the limbo of the useless and forgotten! Since the
alienation of his wife's af