ot actually buy or sell a share of stock; their
managers are merely like the dealers in a faro bank, paid to run the
game. Their sole stock in trade is a leased wire over which to receive
quotations, a handsomely fitted office bearing the legend, "Bankers and
Brokers" (it should be, Bankers and Breakers), a gilt-lettered fiction
of capital invested--and unlimited nerve!

They know full well that the lambs who stray into their den, and by good
luck secure a small profit, will at once grow vain of their speculative
skill and invest again. Even if these dupes win twice or thrice, it only
results in a greater exultation, and the end is the same--they lose.

It is as inevitable as the tides or the sun to the majority, and while
now and then one by sheer luck may win at this great gambling game, nine
out of ten will lose, and the keeper of the shop rides in an automobile
while they walk!

If these parlors of temptation were open only to men who realized the
chances they were taking and could afford to lose, it would be a
different matter; but all who wish to gamble may enter, and the cashier
of your bank, paid a pittance that is but a premium on dishonesty, is
liable to be the first one. And when he, lured on and on by that elusive
hope that next time his guess may be right, has falsified books and made
ducks and drakes of your money, you wake up some fine morning to read
the old, old story, and learn that he has journeyed abroad.

And the bucket-shop keeper across the way smiles softly to himself and
says nothing.

And Puck, looking down upon us human ants, also smiles and says, "What
fools these mortals be."

The Great Rockhaven Granite Company, only one out of a thousand others
of similar end and aim, was but a mere ripple on the sea of speculation.
It was active while it lasted, it brought sorrow and tears to many, a
small fortune to a few, transferring to them the money of others, and
left dishonor and disgrace in its wake. On "the street" it was a nine
days' wonder how so colossal a scheme could be foisted upon them and
carried so near a successful culmination, and then, as usual, it was
forgotten. Others as transparent took its place, and so the mad wave of
speculation rolled on in the city.

But on Rockhaven there was rejoicing.

CHAPTER XXXIII

A TOUCH OF HEROISM

When Winn bade good-by to Jess Hutton he realized for the first time how
closely his life had become linked to Rockhaven. The old man,