There was dizziness in the air.Something, some infinite immeasurable power, onrushing in its eternal courses, shook the Pit in its grasp.Something deafened the ears, blinded the eyes, dulled and numbed the mind, with its roar, with the chaff and dust of its whirlwind passage, with the stupefying sense of its power, coeval with the earthquake and glacier, merciless, all-powerful, a primal basic throe of creation itself, unassailable, inviolate, and untamed.
Had the trading begun? Had the gong struck? Landry never knew, never so much as heard the clang of the great bell.All at once he was fighting; all at once he was caught, as it were, from off the stable earth, and flung headlong into the heart and centre of the Pit.What he did, he could not say; what went on about him, he could not distinguish.He only knew that roar was succeeding roar, that there was crashing through his ears, through his very brain, the combined bellow of a hundred Niagaras.Hands clutched and tore at him, his own tore and clutched in turn.The Pit was mad, was drunk and frenzied; not a man of all those who fought and scrambled and shouted who knew what he or his neighbour did.They only knew that a support long thought to be secure was giving way; not gradually, not evenly, but by horrible collapses, and equally horrible upward leaps.Now it held, now it broke, now it reformed again, rose again, then again in hideous cataclysms fell from beneath their feet to lower depths than before.The official reporter leaned back in his place, helpless.On the wall overhead, the indicator on the dial was rocking back and forth, like the mast of a ship caught in a monsoon.The price of July wheat no man could so much as approximate.The fluctuations were no longer by fractions of a cent, but by ten cents, fifteen cents twenty-five cents at a time.On one side of the Pit wheat sold at ninety cents, on the other at a dollar and a quarter.
And all the while above the din upon the floor, above the tramplings and the shoutings in the Pit, there seemed to thrill and swell that appalling roar of the Wheat itself coming in, coming on like a tidal wave, bursting through, dashing barriers aside, rolling like a measureless, almighty river, from the farms of Iowa and the ranches of California, on to the East--to the bakeshops and hungry mouths of Europe.
Landry caught one of the Gretry traders by the arm.
"What shall we do?" he shouted."I've bought up to my limit.No more orders have come in.The market has gone from under us.What's to be done?""I don't know," the other shouted back, "I don't know.
We're all gone to hell; looks like the last smash.
There are no more supporting orders--something's gone wrong.Gretry hasn't sent any word."Then, Landry, beside himself with excitement and with actual terror, hardly knowing even yet what he did, turned sharply about.He fought his way out of the Pit; he ran hatless and panting across the floor, in and out between the groups of spectators, down the stairs to the corridor below, and into the Gretry-Converse offices.
In the outer office a group of reporters and the representatives of a great commercial agency were besieging one of the heads of the firm.They assaulted him with questions.
"Just tell us where you are at--that's all we want to know.""Just what is the price of July wheat?"
"Is Jadwin winning or losing?"
But the other threw out an arm in a wild gesture of helplessness.
"We don't know, ourselves," he cried."The market has run clean away from everybody.You know as much about it as I do.It's simply hell broken loose, that's all.
We can't tell where we are at for days to come."Landry rushed on.He swung open the door of the private office and entered, slamming it behind him and crying out:
"Mr.Gretry, what are we to do? We've had no orders."But no one listened to him.Of the group that gathered around Gretry's desk, no one so much as turned a head.
Jadwin stood there in the centre of the others, hatless, his face pale, his eyes congested with blood.
Gretry fronted him, one hand upon his arm.In the remainder of the group Landry recognised the senior clerk of the office, one of the heads of a great banking house, and a couple of other men--confidential agents, who had helped to manipulate the great corner.
"But you can't," Gretry was exclaiming."You can't;don't you see we can't meet our margin calls? It's the end of the game.You've got no more money.""It's a lie!" Never so long as he lived did Landry forget the voice in which Jadwin cried the words: "It's a lie! Keep on buying, I tell you.Take all they'll offer.I tell you we'll touch the two dollar mark before noon.""Not another order goes up to that floor," retorted Gretry."Why, J., ask any of these gentlemen here.
They'll tell you."
"It's useless, Mr.Jadwin," said the banker, quietly.
"You were practically beaten two days ago.""Mr.Jadwin," pleaded the senior clerk, "for God's sake listen to reason.Our firm----"But Jadwin was beyond all appeal.He threw off Gretry's hand.
"Your firm, your firm--you've been cowards from the start.I know you, I know you.You have sold me out.
Crookes has bought you.Get out of my way!" he shouted."Get out of my way! Do you hear? I'll play my hand alone from now on.""J., old man--why--see here, man," Gretry implored, still holding him by the arm; "here, where are you going?"Jadwin's voice rang like a trumpet call:
_"Into the Pit."_
"Look here--wait--here.Hold him back gentlemen.He don't know what he's about.""If you won't execute my orders, I'll act myself.I'm going into the Pit, I tell you.""J., you're mad, old fellow.You're ruined--don't you understand?--you're ruined.""Then God curse you, Sam Gretry, for the man who failed me in a crisis." And as he spoke Curtis Jadwin struck the broker full in the face.
Gretry staggered back from the blow, catching at the edge of his desk.His pale face flashed to crimson for an instant, his fists clinched; then his hands fell to his sides.
