in November, at breakfast, Laura said to her husband,
"Curtis, dear, when is it all going to end--your speculating? You never
used to be this way. It seems as though, nowadays, I never had you to
myself. Even when you are not going over papers and reports, or talking
by the hour to Mr. Gretry in the library, your mind seems to be away
from me. I--I am lonesome, dearest, sometimes. And, Curtis, what is the
use? We're so rich now we can't spend our money."

"Oh, it's not the money!" he answered. "It's the fun of the thing--the
excitement."

That very week Jadwin made 500,000 dollars.

"I don't own a grain of wheat now," he assured his wife. "I've got to be
out of it."

But try as he would, the echoes of the rumbling of the Pit reached
Jadwin at every hour of the day and night. He stayed at home over
Christmas. Inactive, he sat there idle, while the clamour of the Pit
swelled daily louder, and the price of wheat went up.

Jadwin chafed and fretted at his inaction and his impatience harried him
like a gadfly. Would no one step into the place of high command.

Very soon the papers began to speak of an unknown "bull" clique who were
rapidly coming into control of the market, and it was no longer a secret
to Laura that her husband had gone back to the market, and that, too,
with such an impetuosity that his rush had carried him to the very heart
of the turmoil.

He was now deeply involved; his influence began to be felt. Not an
important move on the part of the "unknown bull," the nameless,
mysterious stranger, that was not noted and discussed.

It was very late in the afternoon of a lugubrious March day when Jadwin
and Gretry, in the broker's private room, sat studying the latest
Government reports as to the supply of wheat, and Jadwin observed, "Why,
Sam, there's less than 100,000,000 bushels in the farmers' hands. That's
awfully small."

"It ain't, as you might say, colossal," admitted Gretry.

"Sam," said Jadwin again, "the shipments have been about 5,000,000 a
week; 20,000,000 a month, and it's four months before a new crop. Europe
will take 80,000,000 out of the country. I own 10,000,000 now. Why,
there ain't going to be any wheat left in Chicago by May! If I get in
now, and buy a long line of cash wheat, where are all these fellows
going to get it to deliver to me? Say, where are they going to get it?
Come on, now, tell me, where are they going to get it?"

Gretry laid down his pencil, and stared at Jadwin