"We heard it just after you rang off," was his reply. "We've been trying
to get you ever since. I've gone everywhere after Textile stock. Very few
will sell, or even lend, and they ask--the best price was ten points above
to-day's closing. A strong tip's out that Textiles are to be rocketed."
Ten points up already--on the mere rumor! Already ten dollars to pay on
every share I was "short"--and I short more than two hundred thousand! I
felt the claws of the fiend Ruin sink into the flesh of my shoulders. "Ball
doesn't know how I'm fixed," I remember I thought, "and he mustn't know."
I lit a cigar with a steady hand and waited for Joe's next words.
"I went to see Jenkins at once," he went on. Jenkins was then first
vice-president of the Textile Trust. "He's all cut up because the news got
out--says Langdon and he were the only ones who knew, so he supposed--says
the announcement wasn't to have been made for a month--not till Langdon
returned. He has had to confirm it, though. That was the only way to free
his crowd from suspicion of intending to rig the market."
"All right," said I.
"Have you seen the afternoon paper?" he asked. As he held it out to me, my
eye caught big Textile head-lines, then flashed to some others--something
about my going to marry Miss Ellersly.
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