alert associates knew in advance the intentions of a fellow
broker, the word would sweep through that crowd with the sureness of
uncorked ether, and the other two hundred and ninty nine, at gong-strike,
would be at each others' throats for his vitals, and before he knew the
game had started would have his bones picked to a vulture-finish
cleanness. Suddenly, as I watched the scene, there rang through the great
hall the first sharp stroke of the gong. There were no echoes heard that
morning. The metallic voice was yet shaping its command to "at 'em, you
fiends" when from three hundred throats burst the wild sound of the Stock
Exchange yell. No other sound in any of the open or hidden places of all
nature duplicates the yell of a great Stock Exchange at an exciting
opening. It not only fills and refills space, for the volume is terrific,
but it has an individuality all its own, coming from the incisive
"take-mine-I've-got yours," from the aggressive, almost arrogant
"you-can't-you-won't-have-your-way," the confident "by-heaven-I-will"
individual notes that enter into the whole, as they blend with the shrill
scream of triumph and the die-away note of disappointment, when the floor
men realise their success or their failure. I picked Bob's magnificently
resonant voice from the mass--"40 for any part of 10,000 Sugar." It was
this daring bid that struck terror to the bears and filled the bulls[2]
with a frenzy of encouragement. Again it rang out--"45 for any part of
25,000"; and a third time--"50 for any part of 50,000."

The great crowd was surging all over the room. Hats were smashed and coats
were being stripped from their owners' backs as though made of paper, and
now and then a particularly frantic buyer or seller would be borne to the
floor by the impetus of those who sought to fill his bid or grab his
offer. Through all the wild whirl, straight and erect and commanding was
the form of Bob, his face cold and expressionless as an iceberg. In five
minutes the human mass had worked back to the Sugar-pole and there was the
inevitable lull while its members "verified."

I could see by the few entries Bob was making on his pad that he had been
compelled to buy but little. This meant that his campaign was working
smoothly, that he was driving the market up by merely bidding, and that
he had the greater part of my 50,000 yet unbought, which inturn meant he
could continue to push up the price, or in the event of his opponents'