“If you won’t execute my orders, I’ll act myself. I’m going into the Pit, I tell you.”

“ J. , you’re mad, old fellow. You’re ruined⁠—don’t you understand?⁠—you’re ruined.”

“Then God curse you, Sam Gretry, for the man who failed me in a crisis.” And as he spoke Curtis Jadwin struck the broker full in the face.

Gretry staggered back from the blow, catching at the edge of his desk. His pale face flashed to crimson for an instant, his fists clinched; then his hands fell to his sides.

“No,” he said, “let him go, let him go. The man is merely mad.”

But, Jadwin, struggling for a second in the midst of the group that tried to hold him, suddenly flung off the restraining clasps, thrust the men to one side, and rushed from the room.