had trained to supernatural acuteness were as impotent to track the truth as the veriest tyro. All admitted that the conditions were unusual, that the subscriptions had far exceeded expectation, that time would be required to get them straightened out. Because of this it was natural that the market should be slow and in the absence of definite facts it might easily look one price and be another. If the subscription really were 412 millions and if each subscriber would have a fifth of his allotment, then there was the usual chance for trick playing and "Standard Oil" might be scheming to gather in this valuable stock at 110 when its proper price mayhap was 140 to 160 or more.
In Wall Street the best brains of all the Western world centre. Fortunes are there waiting for brains to carve and take; stacked up there are millions which he who has brains can pocket without a "by-your-leave." Wall Street is the millionnaire's checker-board, but brains direct the moves and make the plays. And with all its mordant wisdom, cynical cunning, cold suspicion,