3," "Snap. Col. 96-3/8,"
"Snap. Col."--even as he stood by the ticker and watched the machine
roll out its stream of white paper--"Snap. Col. 108!"

Mr. Gallivant's eyes blurred. He felt queer in his knees. The
perspiration broke out fiercely all over his plump little body. "Why the
mischief doesn't Thwicket come in?" he murmured. "Why don't he sell and
get out of this? Ten, twenty, thirty--great guns! I've made $50,000
already! It can't go on like this much longer. It'll break in half an
hour, 'gad, I know it will--I feel it in my bones! If Thwicket doesn't
sell inside of thirty minutes I'm a goner, and what's worse, he'll be a
goner with me! What's this! 117! By the great horn spoon, I must get
hold of Thwicket! Thwicket! Thwicket! My kingdom for Thwicket!"

Mr. Gallivant dropped the tapes and rushed frantically into the street
and across to the entrance of the Exchange. He dispatched a messenger
across the floor to find his broker, but who could find which in that
tumultuous mob? The Exchange floor was crowded with a crazy body of
yelling men, their faces boiled into crimson, their eyes glowing with a
fierce fire, their hats banged out of shape, their coats in many cases
torn into shreds, jostling, tumbling, jumping, stretching all over each
other in riotous confusion. Fat men were being squeezed into pancakes,
little men were being covered out of sight, tall men were being
clambered upon as if their manifest destiny were to serve as poles, and
every man of them, big, short, thin, fat, lank, and heavy, was
flourishing his arms in the air and howling at the top of his voice!

Mr. Gallivant's messenger returned in a few moments with the report that
Mr. Thwicket could not be found. Quivering with excitement, Mr.
Gallivant started forth in further search. At the door of the Exchange
he met his office-boy, who told him the broker was searching for him
high and low--had been at the office and was now in the Savarin cafe.
Thither Mr. Gallivant rushed as fast as his legs could carry him, only
to learn that Thwicket had just gone out asking every man he met if he
had seen Gallivant. The lawyer was in despair. He glanced at the
ticker--"Snap. Col. 134-1/2!"

"Heavens!" he shrieked, "will nobody seize that crazy Thwicket and hold
him till I come!"

He ran at full speed to the broker's office. Thwicket had left two
minutes before, having learned that Gallivant was at the Savarin. He
turned around again and started once more