not a baby at this
business, am I? You'll let me know something of this game, won't you?
And I tell you, J., it's found money. The man that sells wheat short on
the strength of this has as good as got the money in his vest pocket
already. Oh, nonsense, of course you'll come in. I've been laying for
that Bull gang since long before the Helmick failure, and now I've got
it right where I want it. Look here, J., you aren't the man to throw
money away. You'd buy a business block if you knew you could sell it
over again at a profit. Now here's the chance to make really a fine
Bear deal. Why, as soon as this news gets on the floor there, the price
will bust right down, and down, and down. Porteous and his crowd
couldn't keep it up to save 'em from the receiver's hand one single
minute."

"I know, Sam," answered Jadwin, "and the trouble is, not that I don't
want to speculate, but that I do--too much. That's why I said I'd keep
out of it. It isn't so much the money as the fun of playing the game.
With half a show, I would get in a little more and a little more, till
by and by I'd try to throw a big thing, and instead, the big thing
would throw me. Why, Sam, when you told me that that wreck out there
mumbling a sandwich was Hargus, it made me turn cold."

"Yes, in your feet," retorted Gretry. "I'm not asking you to risk all
your money, am I, or a fifth of it, or a twentieth of it? Don't be an
ass, J. Are we a conservative house, or aren't we? Do I talk like this
when I'm not sure? Look here. Let me sell a million bushels for you.
Yes, I know it's a bigger order than I've handled for you before. But
this time I want to go right into it, head down and heels up, and get a
twist on those Porteous buckoes, and raise 'em right out of their
boots. We get a crop report this morning, and if the visible supply is
as large as I think it is, the price will go off and unsettle the whole
market. I'll sell short for you at the best figures we can get, and you
can cover on the slump any time between now and the end of May."

Jadwin hesitated. In spite of himself he felt a Chance had come. Again
that strange sixth sense of his, the inexplicable instinct, that only
the born speculator knows, warned him. Every now and then during the
course of his business career, this intuition came to him, this flair,
this intangible, vague premonition, this presentiment that he must
seize Opportunity or else Fortune, that so long had stayed at his
elbow, woul