ing. The nature of the
trading on the floor precluded any discovery, during the length of the
session, of a depleted treasury--and left open the path for onward
charges. But before his treasury was depleted the whole structure would
lie in ruins.

He glanced out of his window and smiled. It was the sort of a day which
men in police circles describe as "suicide weather." Coroners will tell
you that on such days their calls are most numerous and history will
tell you that on such days the greatest financial disasters of the world
have visited stock-exchanges and bourses. Burton's jaws were set and his
eyes ablaze with a fiery tenseness which was hardly sane. His loins were
girded and to one focal object was every power dedicated. He was going
to mete out death and destruction. He would grapple with enemies who had
taught him the art of death and destruction. As he ended his
instructions to his brokers he looked at his watch; it was
nine-forty-five. "Cut loose!" he almost shouted. "Railway Generals
closed at 175. By noon I want them down to 50. When Malone's gang begin
pegging the market, break their pegs. Don't spare Coal and Ore. Keep
them too busy with self-preservation to let them think of rescuing
others. Give them slaughter--and unshirted hell!"

* * * * *

The light that rains down from the ceiling of the Stock-Exchange is a
softened, benevolent light, even when the outer skies are lowering. The
gentlemen inside play their game in a well-appointed gambling parlor.

It would not be fitting that they should seem pikers. Above them
stretches a ceiling of soft color scheme in delicate pink and blue and
from this canopy sixty-two ceiling lights shed down a tempered radiance
from globes suggestive of inverted golden blossoms. The great
bronze-framed windows, too, at the east and west make a greater part of
the wall area as receptive of brightness as does a studio skylight--for
the world's cleverest financiers must be cheered by brightness and
protected against gloom.

Today the great interior cube of space needed all the light that could
flood the area between its marble walls--for despite the sixty-two
inverted blossoms it was to see black hours.

Of that there was of course no suspicion at first.

The assembled brokers chatted carelessly, and between them sedately
passed the floor employees in cadet gray, and boys carrying green
watering-pots with which, when many feet had pounded