maid came up to tell them that the car was at the
door. The girls hurried down, laughing and chatting, Ruth's irritation
apparently having been banished from her mind. It was a bright,
sparkling day. The lake glistened and the wind from it again blew the
color into the faces of the "Automobile Girls."

Mr. Stuart's office was in one of the tall office buildings on La Salle
Street, not far from the Board of Trade. The girls were shot up to the
seventeenth floor on the elevator with a speed that fairly took their
breaths away. Mollie uttered a chorus of subdued "ohs" all the way up.

Even in the staid business office the girls found much to interest them.
Mollie's attention was first attracted to an energetic little machine at
one side of the room. This odd looking machine ticked like a clock, but
resembled one in no other way, and from it at intervals spun a narrow,
ribbon-like strip of paper which curled and coiled into an elongated
waste-paper basket. Mollie stood over the basket regarding the
perplexing letters and figures printed on the paper ribbon.

"Do--do you make ribbons on this?" she questioned, laying a finger on
the glass globe that covered the mechanism.

"Not exactly, my dear," answered Mr. Stuart. "But that little machine
sometimes helps us to buy ribbons for our families. That is a ticker. It
gives the market quotations. I hardly think you will be interested in
it."

Mollie decided that she wasn't.

"If you are ready, girls, we will go over to the Board of Trade, where
you will see the bulls and bears engaged in a pitched battle. It is to
be a lively day on the floor of the Pit."

Mollie was frowning perplexedly.

"Are we really going to see a bull fight?" she whispered to Ruth. "Do
the bulls and the bears really fight? I--I don't think I want to see
them if they do."

"No, no, silly. Nothing of the sort. Oh, girls!" laughed Ruth merrily.

"Don't you dare tell them," admonished Mollie, "I'll never forgive you
if you do."

"Never mind," called Ruth to the others, "I'll explain, dear. Of course
you know nothing about these things. I wish I didn't. I wish father did
not, either," she added with a touch of bitterness. "Bulls and bears are
mere men. The bulls are those who try to force up the prices of wheat
and other things, while the bears are the ones who seek to keep the
prices down. I--I never have been able to make up my mind which of them
is the most undesirable."

"I am sure Mr. Stuart