owd it, when to hustle it,
when it would stand rough handling.

Grossmann still uttered his plaint from time to time, but no one so
much as pretended to listen. The Porteous trio and Leaycraft kept the
price steady at ninety-four and an eighth, but showed no inclination to
force it higher. For a full five minutes not a trade was recorded. The
Pit waited for the Report on the Visible Supply.

And it was during this lull in the morning's business that the idiocy
of the English ultimatum to the Porte melted away. As inexplicably and
as suddenly as the rumour had started, it now disappeared. Everyone,
simultaneously, seemed to ridicule it. England declare war on Turkey!
Where was the joke? Who was the damn fool to have started that old,
worn-out war scare? But, for all that, there was no reaction from the
advance. It seemed to be understood that either Leaycraft or the
Porteous crowd stood ready to support the market; and in place of the
ultimatum story a feeling began to gain ground that the expected report
would indicate a falling off in the "visible," and that it was quite on
the cards that the market might even advance another point.

As the interest in the immediate situation declined, the crowd in the
Pit grew less dense. Portions of it were deserted; even Grossmann,
discouraged, retired to a bench under the visitors' gallery. And a
spirit of horse-play, sheer foolishness, strangely inconsistent with
the hot-eyed excitement of the few moments after the opening invaded
the remaining groups. Leaycraft, the formidable, as well as Paterson of
the Porteous gang, and even the solemn Winston, found an apparently
inexhaustible diversion in folding their telegrams into pointed
javelins and sending them sailing across the room, watching the course
of the missiles with profound gravity. A visitor in the gallery--no
doubt a Western farmer on a holiday--having put his feet upon the rail,
the entire Pit began to groan "boots, boots, boots."

A little later a certain broker came scurrying across the floor from
the direction of the telephone room. Panting, he flung himself up the
steps of the Pit, forced his way among the traders with vigorous
workings of his elbows, and shouted a bid.

"He's sick," shouted Hirsch. "Look out, he's sick. He's going to have a
fit." He grabbed the broker by both arms and hustled him into the
centre of the Pit. The others caught up the cry, a score of hands
pushed the newcomer from man to man. The P