ned to them from a doorway, and they found
Graham sitting before a littered table. A man sat opposite him with
the telephone receiver in his hand.

"Sorry to keep you, but I've both hands full just now. Every man in
this city is thinking wheat," he said. "Has he word from Chicago,
Thomson?"

"Yes," said the clerk. "Bears lost hold this morning. General buying!"

Just then the door swung open and a breathless man came in. "Guess I
scared that clerk of yours who wanted to turn me off," he said. "Heard
what Chicago's doing? Well, you've got to buy for me now. They're
going to send her right up into the sky, and it's 'bout time I got out
before the bulls trample the life out of me."

"Quite sure you can't wait until to-morrow?" asked Graham.

The man shook his head. "No, sir. When I've been selling all along
the line! Send off right away, and tell your man on the market to
cover every blame sale for me."

Graham signed to the clerk, and as the telephone bell tinkled a lad
brought in a message. The broker opened it. "New York lost advance
and recovered it twice in the first hour," he read. "At present a
point or two better. Steady buying in Liverpool."

"That," said the other man, "is quite enough for me. Let me have the
contracts as soon as they're ready."

He went out, and Graham turned to Winston. "There's half-a-dozen more
of them outside," he said. "Do you buy or sell?"

Winston laughed. "I want to know which a wise man would do."

"Well," said Graham, "I can't tell you. The bulls rushed wheat up as I
wired you, but the other folks got their claws in and worried it down
again. Wheat's anywhere and nowhere all the time, and I'm advising
nobody just now. No doubt you've formed your own opinion."

Winston nodded. "It's the last of the grapple, and the bears aren't
quite beaten yet, but any time the next week or two the decisive turn
will come. Then, if they haven't got out, there'll be very little left
of them."

"You seem tolerably sure of the thing. Got plenty of confidence in the
bulls?"

Winston smiled. "I fancy I know how Western wheat was sown this year
better than any statistician of the ring, and it's not the bulls I'm
counting on, but those millions of hungry folks in the old country.
It's not New York or Chicago, but Liverpool the spark is coming from."

"Well," said Graham, "that's my notion, too, but I've no time for
anybody who hasn't grist for me just now. Still, I