All the
signs pointed to a killing, and a terrific one--pointed so plainly that
the bears and Sugar shorts found no hope in the atmosphere or the date.
Bob had not been near the office the afternoon before, and as he had not
come in by five minutes to ten I decided to go over to the Exchange and
see if he were going to mix up in the baiting of the Sugar bears. I had no
specific reasons for thinking he was interested except his recent queer
actions, particularly his hanging to the Sugar-pole, yet doing nothing,
the day before. But it is one of the best-established traditions of
stock-gambledom that when an operator has been bitten by a rabid
stock he is invariably attracted to it every time afterward that it
shows signs of frothing. More than all, I had one of those strong
nowhere-born-nowhere-cradled intuitions common to those living in the
stock-gambling world, which made me feel the creepy shadow of coming
events.
As on that day a few weeks before, the crowd was at the Sugar-pole, but
its alignment was different. There in the centre were Barry Conant and his
trusted lieutenants, but no opposing rival. None of those hundreds of
brokers showed that desperate resolve to do or die that is born of a
necessity.
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