Jadwin, inevitably, had been again drawn into the troubled waters of the Pit. Always, as from the very first, a Bear, he had once more raided the market, and had once more been successful. Two months after this raid he and Gretry planned still another coup, a deal of greater magnitude than any they had previously hazarded. Laura, who knew very little of her husband’s affairs⁠—to which he seldom alluded⁠—saw by the daily papers that at one stage of the affair the deal trembled to its base.

But Jadwin was by now “blooded to the game.” He no longer needed Gretry’s urging to spur him. He had developed into a strategist, bold, of inconceivable effrontery, delighting in the shock of battle, never more jovial, more daring than when under stress of the most merciless attack. On this occasion, when the “other side” resorted to the usual tactics to drive him from the Pit, he led on his enemies to make one single false step. Instantly⁠—disregarding Gretry’s entreaties as to caution⁠—Jadwin had brought the vast bulk of his entire fortune to bear, in the manner of a general concentrating his heavy artillery, and crushed the opposition with appalling swiftness.