第78章

"J.," faltered the broker, "J., I--I'm damned if Iknow."

And then, all in the same moment, the two men were on their feet.The event which all those past eleven months had been preparing was suddenly consummated, suddenly stood revealed, as though a veil had been ripped asunder, as though an explosion had crashed through the air upon them, deafening, blinding, Jadwin sprang forward, gripping the broker by the shoulder.

"Sam," he shouted, "do you know--great God!--do you know what this means? Sam, we can corner the market!"VIII

On that particular morning in April, the trading around the Wheat Pit on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade, began practically a full five minutes ahead of the stroke of the gong; and the throng of brokers and clerks that surged in and about the Pit itself was so great that it overflowed and spread out over the floor between the wheat and corn pits, ousting the traders in oats from their traditional ground.The market had closed the day before with May wheat at ninety-eight and five-eighths, and the Bulls had prophesied and promised that the magic legend "Dollar wheat" would be on the Western Union wires before another twenty-four hours.

The indications pointed to a lively morning's work.

Never for an instant during the past six weeks had the trading sagged or languished.The air of the Pit was surcharged with a veritable electricity; it had the effervescence of champagne, or of a mountain-top at sunrise.It was buoyant, thrilling.

The "Unknown Bull" was to all appearance still in control; the whole market hung upon his horns; and from time to time, one felt the sudden upward thrust, powerful, tremendous, as he flung the wheat up another notch.The "tailers"--the little Bulls--were radiant.

In the dark, they hung hard by their unseen and mysterious friend who daily, weekly, was making them richer.The Bears were scarcely visible.The Great Bull in a single superb rush had driven them nearly out of the Pit.Growling, grumbling they had retreated, and only at distance dared so much as to bare a claw.

Just the formidable lowering of the Great Bull's frontlet sufficed, so it seemed, to check their every move of aggression or resistance.And all the while, Liverpool, Paris, Odessa, and Buda-Pesth clamoured ever louder and louder for the grain that meant food to the crowded streets and barren farms of Europe.

A few moments before the opening Charles Cressler was in the public room, in the southeast corner of the building, where smoking was allowed, finishing his morning's cigar.But as he heard the distant striking of the gong, and the roar of the Pit as it began to get under way, with a prolonged rumbling trepidation like the advancing of a great flood, he threw his cigar away and stepped out from the public room to the main floor, going on towards the front windows.At the sample tables he filled his pockets with wheat, and once at the windows raised the sash and spread the pigeons'

breakfast on the granite ledge.

While he was watching the confused fluttering of flashing wings, that on the instant filled the air in front of the window, he was all at once surprised to hear a voice at his elbow, wishing him good morning.

"Seem to know you, don't they?"

Cressler turned about.

"Oh," he said."Hullo, hullo--yes, they know me all right.Especially that red and white hen.She's got a lame wing since yesterday, and if I don't watch, the others would drive her off.The pouter brute yonder, for instance.He's a regular pirate.Wants all the wheat himself.Don't ever seem to get enough.""Well," observed the newcomer, laconically, "there are others."The man who spoke was about forty years of age.His name was Calvin Hardy Crookes.He was very small and very slim.His hair was yet dark, and his face--smooth-shaven and triangulated in shape, like a cat's--was dark as well.The eyebrows were thin and black, and the lips too were thin and were puckered a little, like the mouth of a tight-shut sack.The face was secretive, impassive, and cold.

The man himself was dressed like a dandy.His coat and trousers were of the very newest fashion.He wore a white waistcoat, drab gaiters, a gold watch and chain, a jewelled scarf pin, and a seal ring.From the top pocket of his coat protruded the finger tips of a pair of unworn red gloves.

"Yes," continued Crookes, unfolding a brand-new pocket handkerchief as he spoke."There are others--who never know when they've got enough wheat.""Oh, you mean the 'Unknown Bull.'"

"I mean the unknown damned fool," returned Crookes placidly.

There was not a trace of the snob about Charles Cressler.No one could be more democratic.But at the same time, as this interview proceeded, he could not fight down nor altogether ignore a certain qualm of gratified vanity.Had the matter risen to the realm of his consciousness, he would have hated himself for this.But it went no further than a vaguely felt increase of self-esteem.He seemed to feel more important in his own eyes; he would have liked to have his friends see him just now talking with this man.

"Crookes was saying to-day--" he would observe when next he met an acquaintance.For C.H.Crookes was conceded to be the "biggest man" in La Salle Street.

Not even the growing importance of the new and mysterious Bull could quite make the market forget the Great Bear.Inactive during all this trampling and goring in the Pit, there were yet those who, even as they strove against the Bull, cast uneasy glances over their shoulders, wondering why the Bear did not come to the help of his own.

"Well, yes," admitted Cressler, combing his short beard, "yes, he is a fool."The contrast between the two men was extreme.Each was precisely what the other was not.The one, long, angular, loose-jointed; the other, tight, trig, small, and compact.The one osseous, the other sleek; the one stoop-shouldered, the other erect as a corporal of infantry.

But as Cressler was about to continue Crookes put his chin in the air.

"Hark!" he said."What's that?"