"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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "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 Sat.u.r.day," 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 Sat.u.r.day, 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, thinking of others. "No fool like an old fool, Tom. If I've been stung once I've been stung a dozen times! It's winning the first time that's bad. You can't forget it--the sensation of winning. Sort of your case too, eh? Well, come on. I'm matching you!"

An hour later, with the announcement of the additional dividend, they stood together by the tape and watched Pittsburgh & New Orleans mount by jerks and starts--5000 at 33--2,000 at 35-1/2--1,000 at 34-1/2--4,000 at 35-3/4--500 at 34.

"Having a great time, isn't it? Jumping all over the place. Orders must be thick as huckleberries. Selling all over the place so fast they can't keep track of it."

Flaspoller came in with the first purchase by Hauk, who was having a frantic time executing his orders.

"I've bought 2,000 at 34, thank G.o.d," said Bojo, returning from the telephone. "What's it now?"

"Touched 36: 10,000 at 35-1/2--big orders are coming in. Thirty-six again. Lovelier and lovelier."

Back and forth from telephone to ticker they went without time for luncheon, elated at the thought of shares purchased at any price, grimly watching the ominous figures creep up and up, mute, paralyzing indications of the struggle and frenzy on the floor, where brokers flung themselves hoa.r.s.e and screaming into knotted, swaying groups and telephone-boys swarmed back and forth from the booths like myriad angry ants trampled out of their ant-hills.

At two o'clock Pittsburgh & New Orleans had reached 42. An hour before Bojo had left the ticker, waiting breathlessly at the telephone for the announcement of purchases that meant precious thousands. At two-thirty the final dock of 500 shares came in at 42-1/2. Mechanically he added the new figures to the waiting list. Of the $83,000 in the bank and the $95,000 which yesterday summed up his winnings on paper, he had to his credit when all accounts were squared hardly $15,000. The rest had collapsed in a morning, like a soap bubble.

"Save anything?" said Forshay, struck by the wildness in the young man's look.

"I can settle my account here, I'm glad to say," said Bojo with difficulty. "That's something. I think I'll pull out with around fifteen thousand. Hope you did better."

"Thanks, awfully."

"Cleaned out?" said Bojo, startled.

"Beautiful. Clean. Well, good-by, Tom, and--better luck next time."

Bojo looked up hastily, aghast. But Forshay was smiling. He nodded and went out.

Bojo reached the court still in a daze, unable to comprehend where it had all gone--this fortune that was on his fingers yesterday. Yesterday!

If he had only closed up yesterday! Then through the haze of his numbed sense of loss came a poignant, terrifying recall to actuality. He stood pledged to Drake for the amount of $50,000, and he could not make good even a third! If the pool had been wiped out--and he had slight hopes of saving anything there--he would have to procure $35,000 somewhere, somehow, or face to Drake and his own self-respect that he could not redeem his own word. What could he say, what excuse offer! If the pool had collapsed--he was dishonored.

The realization came slowly. For a long while, sitting in the embrasure of the bay window--his forehead against the cold panes, it seemed to him incredible the way he had gone these last six months; as though it had all been a fever that had peopled his horizon with unreal figures, phantasies of hot dreams.

But the unblinkable, waking fact was there. His word had been pledged for $50,000 to Drake, to the father of the girl he was to marry. Marry!

At the thought he laughed aloud bitterly. That, too, was a thing that had vanished in the bubble of dreams. He thought of his father, to whom he would have to go; but his pride recoiled. He would never go to him for aid--a failure and a bankrupt. Rather beg Drake on his knees for time to work out the debt than that!

"How did I do it? What possessed me! What madness possessed me!" he said wearily again and again.

At eight o clock, when all the high electric lights had come out about the blazing window of the court, recalled by the sounds of music from the gla.s.s-paneled restaurant he went out for dinner, wondering why his friends had not returned. At ten when he came back after long tramping of the streets, a note was on the table, in Granning's broad handwriting.

Hoped to catch you. Fred's gone off on a tear; G.o.d knows where he is. Roscy and I have been trying to locate him all day. Hope you pulled through, old boy.

GRANNING.

At twelve o clock, still miserably alone, tortured by remorse and the thought of the wreck he had unwittingly brought his chums, he could bear the suspense of evasion no longer. He went up to Drake's to learn the worst, steeled to a full confession.

In the hall, as he waited chafing and miserable, Fontaine, Gunther's right-hand partner, pa.s.sed out hurriedly, jaws set, oblivious. Drake was in the library in loose dressing-gown and slippers, a cigar in his mouth, immersed in the usual contemplation of the picture puzzle.

"By George, he bears it well," Bojo thought to himself, moved to admiration by the calm of that impa.s.sive figure.

"h.e.l.lo, Tom," he said, looking up, "what's brought you here at this time of night? Anything wrong?"

"Wrong?" said Bojo faintly. "Haven't you heard about Pittsburgh & New Orleans?"

"Well, what about it?"

Bojo gulped down something that was in his throat, steadying himself against the awful truth that meant ruin and dishonor to him.

"Mr. Drake--tell me what I owe you? I want to know what I owe you," he said desperately.

"Owe? Nothing."

"But the pool?"

"Well, what about the pool?" said Drake, eyeing him closely.