hey had it in hand,
was not to be got except from him--and at whatever price he chose to
impose. He could exact from them a hundred dollars a bushel if he
chose, and they must pay him the price or become bankrupts.

By now his mind was upon this one great fact--May Wheat--continually.
It was with him the instant he woke in the morning. It kept him company
during his hasty breakfast; in the rhythm of his horses' hoofs, as the
team carried him down town he heard, "Wheat--wheat--wheat,
wheat--wheat--wheat." No sooner did he enter La Salle Street, than the
roar of traffic came to his ears as the roar of the torrent of wheat
which drove through Chicago from the Western farms to the mills and
bakeshops of Europe. There at the foot of the street the torrent
swirled once upon itself, forty million strong, in the eddy which he
told himself he mastered. The afternoon waned, night came on. The day's
business was to be gone over; the morrow's campaign was to be planned;
little, unexpected side issues, a score of them, a hundred of them,
cropped out from hour to hour; new decisions had to be taken each
minute. At dinner time he left the office, and his horses carried him
home again, while again their hoofs upon the asphalt beat out
unceasingly the monotone of the one refrain, "Wheat--wheat--wheat,
wheat--wheat--wheat." At dinner table he could not eat. Between each
course he found himself going over the day's work, testing it,
questioning himself, "Was this rightly done?" "Was that particular
decision sound?" "Is there a loophole here?" "Just what was the meaning
of that despatch?" After the meal the papers, contracts, statistics and
reports which he had brought with him in his Gladstone bag were to be
studied. As often as not Gretry called, and the two, shut in the
library, talked, discussed, and planned till long after midnight.

Then at last, when he had shut the front door upon his lieutenant and
turned to face the empty, silent house, came the moment's reaction. The
tired brain flagged and drooped; exhaustion, like a weight of lead,
hung upon his heels. But somewhere a hall clock struck, a single,
booming note, like a gong--like the signal that would unchain the
tempest in the Pit to-morrow morning. Wheat--wheat--wheat,
wheat--wheat--wheat! Instantly the jaded senses braced again, instantly
the wearied mind sprang to its post. He turned out the lights, he
locked the front door. Long since the great house was asleep. In the
co