Salle Street. Not even the
growing importance of the new and mysterious Bull could quite make the
market forget the Great Bear. Inactive during all this trampling and
goring in the Pit, there were yet those who, even as they strove
against the Bull, cast uneasy glances over their shoulders, wondering
why the Bear did not come to the help of his own.

"Well, yes," admitted Cressler, combing his short beard, "yes, he is a
fool."

The contrast between the two men was extreme. Each was precisely what
the other was not. The one, long, angular, loose-jointed; the other,
tight, trim, small, and compact. The one osseous, the other sleek; the
one stoop-shouldered, the other erect as a corporal of infantry.

But as Cressler was about to continue Crookes put his chin in the air.

"Hark!" he said. "What's that?"

For from the direction of the Wheat Pit had come a sudden and vehement
renewal of tumult. The traders as one man were roaring in chorus. There
were cheers; hats went up into the air. On the floor by the lowest step
two brokers, their hands trumpet-wise to their mouths, shouted at top
voice to certain friends at a distance, while above them, on the
topmost step of the Pit, a half-dozen others, their arms at fullest
stretch, threw the hand signals that interpreted the fluctuations in
the price, to their associates in the various parts of the building.
Again and again the cheers rose, violent hip-hip-hurrahs and tigers,
while from all corners and parts of the floor men and boys came
scurrying up. Visitors in the gallery leaned eagerly upon the railing.
Over in the provision pit, trading ceased for the moment, and all heads
were turned towards the commotion of the wheat traders.

"Ah," commented Crookes, "they did get it there at last."

For the hand on the dial had suddenly jumped another degree, and not a
messenger boy, not a porter not a janitor, none whose work or life
brought him in touch with the Board of Trade, that did not feel the
thrill. The news flashed out to the world on a hundred telegraph wires;
it was called to a hundred offices across the telephone lines. From
every doorway, even, as it seemed, from every window of the building,
spreading thence all over the city, the State, the Northwest, the
entire nation, sped the magic words, "Dollar wheat."

Crookes turned to Cressler.

"Can you lunch with me to-day--at Kinsley's? I'd like to have a talk
with you."

And as soon as Cressler had accepted the inv