第98章

Good God, if I were to believe every damned story the papers print about me these days I'd go insane."Yet when he put up the price of wheat to a dollar and twenty cents, the great flour mills of Minnesota and Wisconsin stopped grinding, and finding a greater profit in selling the grain than in milling it, threw their stores upon the market.Though the bakers did not increase the price of their bread as a consequence of this, the loaf--even in Chicago, even in the centre of that great Middle West that weltered in the luxury of production--was smaller, and from all the poorer districts of the city came complaints, protests, and vague grumblings of discontent.

On a certain Monday, about the middle of May, Jadwin sat at Gretry's desk (long since given over to his use), in the office on the ground floor of the Board of Trade, swinging nervously back and forth in the swivel chair, drumming his fingers upon the arms, and glancing continually at the clock that hung against the opposite wall.It was about eleven in the morning.The Board of Trade vibrated with the vast trepidation of the Pit, that for two hours had spun and sucked, and guttered and disgorged just overhead.The waiting-room of the office was more than usually crowded.Parasites of every description polished the walls with shoulder and elbow.Millionaires and beggars jostled one another about the doorway.The vice-president of a bank watched the door of the private office covertly; the traffic manager of a railroad exchanged yarns with a group of reporters while awaiting his turn.

As Gretry, the great man's lieutenant, hurried through the anteroom, conversation suddenly ceased, and half a dozen of the more impatient sprang forward.But the broker pushed his way through the crowd, shaking his head, excusing himself as best he might, and entering the office, closed the door behind him.

At the clash of the lock Jadwin started half-way from his chair, then recognising the broker, sank back with a quick breath.

"Why don't you knock, or something, Sam?" he exclaimed.

"Might as well kill a man as scare him to death.Well, how goes it?""All right.I've fixed the warehouse crowd--and we just about 'own' the editorial and news sheets of these papers." He threw a memorandum down upon the desk.

"I'm off again now.Got an appointment with the Northwestern crowd in ten minutes.Has Hargus or Scannel shown up yet?""Hargus is always out in your customers' room,"answered Jadwin."I can get him whenever I want him.

But Scannel has not shown up yet.I thought when we put up the price again Friday we'd bring him in.Ithought you'd figured out that he couldn't stand that rise.""He can't stand it," answered Gretry."He'll be in to see you to-morrow or next day.""To-morrow or next day won't do," answered Jadwin."Iwant to put the knife into him to-day.You go up there on the floor and put the price up another cent.That will bring him, or I'll miss my guess."Gretry nodded."All right," he said, "it's your game.

Shall I see you at lunch?"

"Lunch! I can't eat.But I'll drop around and hear what the Northwestern people had to say to you."A few moments after Gretry had gone Jadwin heard the ticker on the other side of the room begin to chatter furiously; and at the same time he could fancy that the distant thunder of the Pit grew suddenly more violent, taking on a sharper, shriller note.He looked at the tape.The one-cent rise had been effected.

"You will hold out, will you, you brute?" muttered Jadwin."See how you like that now." He took out his watch."You'll be running in to me in just about ten minutes' time."He turned about, and calling a clerk, gave orders to have Hargus found and brought to him.

When the old fellow appeared Jadwin jumped up and gave him his hand as he came slowly forward.

His rusty top hat was in his hand; from the breast pocket of his faded and dirty frock coat a bundle of ancient newspapers protruded.His shoestring tie straggled over his frayed shirt front, while at his wrist one of his crumpled cuffs, detached from the sleeve, showed the bare, thin wrist between cloth and linen, and encumbered the fingers in which he held the unlit stump of a fetid cigar.

Evidently bewildered as to the cause of this summons, he looked up perplexed at Jadwin as he came up, out of his dim, red-lidded eyes.

"Sit down, Hargus.Glad to see you," called Jadwin.

"Hey?"

The voice was faint and a little querulous.

"I say, sit down.Have a chair.I want to have a talk with you.You ran a corner in wheat once yourself.""Oh....Wheat."

"Yes, your corner.You remember?"

"Yes.Oh, that was long ago.In seventy-eight it was--the September option.And the Board made wheat in the cars 'regular.'"His voice trailed off into silence, and he looked vaguely about on the floor of the room, sucking in his cheeks, and passing the edge of one large, osseous hand across his lips.

"Well, you lost all your money that time, I believe.

Scannel, your partner, sold out on you."

"Hey? It was in seventy-eight....The secretary of the Board announced our suspension at ten in the morning.

If the Board had not voted to make wheat in the cars 'regular'----"He went on and on, in an impassive monotone, repeating, word for word, the same phrases he had used for so long that they had lost all significance.

"Well," broke in Jadwin, at last, "it was Scannel your partner, did for you.Scannel, I say.You know, Dave Scannel."The old man looked at him confusedly.Then, as the name forced itself upon the atrophied brain, there flashed, for one instant, into the pale, blurred eye, a light, a glint, a brief, quick spark of an old, long-forgotten fire.It gleamed there an instant, but the next sank again.

Plaintively, querulously he repeated:

"It was in seventy-eight....I lost three hundred thousand dollars.""How's your little niece getting on?" at last demanded Jadwin.