" Neither Barry Conant nor any of his lieutenants
got in a "Take it"; although whether they wanted to or not was an open
question until Bob allowed his voice to dwell just a pendulum swing of
time on the 20. It was as if he were tantalising them into sticking by
their guns. By the time he paused, Barry Conant's nerve was back, for his
piercing "Take it" had linked to it "20 for any part of 10,000." The bid
was yet on his lips when Bob's deep voice rang out "Sold." "Any part of
25,000 at 19, 18, 15, 10." Hell was now loose. Back and forth, up against
the rail, around the room and back and around again, the crowd surged for
fifteen of the wildest, craziest minutes in the history of the New York
Stock Exchange, a history replete with records of wild and crazy scenes.
At last from sheer exhaustion there came a ten minutes' lull, which was
used in comparing trades. At the beginning of the respite Sugar was
selling at 155, for in that quarter-hour of madness it had broken from 210
to 155, but when the ten minutes had elapsed, the stock had worked back to
167. Barry Conant had again taken the centre of the crowd after hastily
scanning the brief notes handed him by messenger-boys and giving orders to
his lieutenants.
Pages:
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111