He tried to explain that he had merely bought the right to call for the
grain on a certain date, but she could not understand this very clearly.

"Never mind," she told him, "go on."

"Well, then, at the end of August we found out that the wet weather in
England would make a short crop there, and along in September came the
news that Siberia would not raise enough to supply the southern
provinces of Russia. That left only the United States and the Argentine
Republic to feed pretty much the whole world. Of course that would make
wheat valuable. Seems to be a short-crop year everywhere. I saw that
wheat would go higher and higher, so I bought another million bushels
in October, and another early in this month. That's all. You see, I
figure that pretty soon those people over in England and Italy and
Germany--the people that eat wheat--will be willing to pay us in
America big prices for it, because it's so hard to get. They've got to
have the wheat--it's bread 'n' butter to them."

"Oh, then why not give it to them?" she cried. "Give it to those poor
people--your five million bushels. Why, that would be a godsend to
them."

Jadwin stared a moment.

"Oh, that isn't exactly how it works out," he said.

Before he could say more, however, the maid came in and handed to
Jadwin three despatches.

"Now those," said Laura, when the servant had gone out, "you get those
every morning. Are those part of your business? What do they say?"

"I'll read them to you," he told her as he slit the first envelopes.
"They are cablegrams from agents of mine in Europe. Gretry arranged to
have them sent to me. Here now, this is from Odessa. It's in cipher,
but"--he drew a narrow memorandum-book from his breast pocket--"I'll
translate it for you."

He turned the pages of the key book a few moments, jotting down the
translation on the back of an envelope with the gold pencil at the end
of his watch chain.

"Here's how it reads," he said at last. "'Cash wheat advanced one cent
bushel on Liverpool buying, stock light. Shipping to interior. European
price not attractive to sellers.'"

"What does that mean?" she asked.

"Well, that Russia will not export wheat, that she has no more than
enough for herself, so that Western Europe will have to look to us for
her wheat."

"And the others? Read those to me."

Again Jadwin translated.

"This is from Paris:

"'Answer on one million bushels wheat in your market--stocks lighter
than expec