* * *

When he reached the offices, he learned for the first time how deeply
the firm had speculated on the information of Drake's intentions.
Forshay was cool, with the calm of the sportsman game in the face of
ruin, but Flaspoller and Hauk were frantic in their denunciations. It
was a trick, a stock-jobbing device of an inner circle. Nothing could
justify an additional dividend. The common stock had not been on a two
per cent. basis more than three years. Nothing justified it. Some one
would go behind the bars for it! Forshay smoked on, shrugging his
shoulders, rather contemptuous.

"Hit you hard?" he said to Bojo.

"Looks so. And you?"

"Rather."

"You call up Drake. Maybe he come back," said Flaspoller, ungrammatical
in his wrath.

"He won't be in," said Bojo, and for the twentieth time he received the
invariable answer.

[Illustration: "The message was the end of hope"]

At nine o'clock Skelly's office called up. A clerk gave the message, Mr.
Skelly being too occupied. Bojo listened, hoping desperately against
hope, believing in the possibility of salvation in an enormous block to
be thrown on the market. The message was the end of hope!

"Cancel selling orders. Buy Pittsburgh & New Orleans at the market up to
20,000 shares."

He tried ineffectively to reach Skelly personally and then communicated
the order to the others, who were waiting in silence.

"If Drake's out, good-by," said Forshay, who went to the window,
whistling. "Well, let's save what we can!"

The realization of the situation brought a sudden calm. Hauk departed
for the floor of the Stock Exchange. The others prepared to wait.

"Match you quarters," said Forshay with a laugh. He came back, glancing
over Bojo's shoulder at a few figures jotted down on a pad, reading off
the total: "12,350 shares. I thought you were in only ten thousand."

"Twenty-three fifty Saturday," said Bojo, staring at the pad. "At 5 per
cent. margin too."

"Lovely. What cleans you out?"

Bojo figured a moment, frowned, consulted his list, and finally
announced: "Thirty-seven and one-half wipes me out nice and clean."

"I'm good for a point higher. I say, there's rather a rush on this
office; have you got buying orders elsewhere?" Bojo nodded. "Good. Take
every chance. What did we close at Saturday, thirty-one and one-half?"

"Thirty-two."

"Oh well, there's a chance." He looked serious a moment, turning a coin
over and over on his hand,