There was a step at the door, and as Crookes called to come in, the office messenger entered and put a slip of paper into his hands. Crookes looked at it, and pushed it across his desk towards Cressler.

“Here you are,” he observed. “That’s your trade. Five hundred May, at a dollar ten. You were lucky to get it at that⁠—or at any price.”

“Ten!” cried the other, as he took the paper.

Crookes turned away again, and glanced indifferently over his letters. Cressler laid the slip carefully down upon the ledge of the desk, and though Crookes did not look up, he could almost feel how the man braced himself, got a grip of himself, put all his resources to the stretch to meet this blow squarely in the front.

“And I said another eighth would bust me,” Cressler remarked, with a short laugh. “Well,” he added, grimly, “it looks as though I were busted. I suppose, though, we must all expect to get the knife once in a while⁠—mustn’t we? Well, there goes fifty thousand dollars of my good money.”