CHAPTER XVI

THE GRIP OF THE PIT

Now, infidel, I have thee on the hip!
--_Merchant of Venice._

The visitors' gallery is an excellent vantage point from which to view
the trading floor of the Exchange. It runs the full width of the south
wall. The chairs entrenched behind the rail have acquired a slippery
polish from the shiftings of countless occupants just as the wall
behind has known the restless backs of onlookers who have stood for
hours at a stretch.

It is here that the curious foregather--good people from every walk of
life except the grain business. The tourist who is "just passing
through your beautiful city" and has heard that Winnipeg has the
largest primary wheat market in the world--the tourist drops in to see
the sights. Friend Husband is there, pretending to be very bored by
these things while fulfilling his promise to take Friend Wife "some day
when there's something doing." Young girls who only know that bulls
hate anything red and that bears hug people to death--they are there,
thrilled by the prospect of what they are about to witness with but a
very vague idea of what it will be. A dear old lady from the quiet
eddies of some sheltered spot has been brought in by the rest of her
party to see "goin's on" of which she does not approve because gambling
is a well-known sin. She is somewhat reassured by noting a few seats
away a man who wears the garb of a clergyman; presently he will take
notes for his forthcoming sermon on "The Propinquity of Temptation and
Its Relation to the Christian Life." The two young women who whisper
together in the corner have been reading stockmarket stories in the
magazines and they are wondering which of the traders, assembling on
the floor below, will have his coat and collar torn off and which will
break down and give vent to those "big, dry man-sobs" when his fortune
is wrecked!

Not the least of the sights at the Grain Exchange is the Visitors'
Gallery!

Two tanned farmers are discussing quotations and general conditions in
a matter-of-fact way. War demands, the unfavorable United States
Government report and rumors of black rust are making for a bullish
condition. Cables are up and the market promises to be wild this
morning. The gong will go in five minutes.

"The Pit" is out in the middle of the floor. There is an octagonal
platform, raised a couple of feet from the floor level. In the centre
of this platform three wide steps