'don't you know the day? Don't you know it is Friday, the 13th? Go back
to that hell-pit and sell, sell, sell.' 'Sell what and how much?' I asked.
'Anything, everything. Give the thieves every share they will take, and
when they won't take any more, ram as much again down their crops until
they spit up all they have been buying for the last three months!' Going
out I met Jim Holliday and Frank Swan rushing in. They are evidently
executing Bob's orders, and have been pouring Anti-People's out for an
hour. They will be on the floor again in a few minutes, so I thought it
safer to call you before I started to sell. Mr. Randolph, they cannot take
much more of anything in here, and if I begin to throw stocks over, it
will bring the gavel inside of ten minutes; and that will be to announce a
dozen failures. It's yet twenty minutes to one and God only knows what
will happen before three. It's up to you, Mr. Randolph, to do something,
and unless I am on a bad slant, you haven't many minutes to lose."

It was then I dropped the receiver with "I thought as much!" As I had been
fingering the tape, watching five and ten millions crumbling from price
values every few minutes, I was sure this was the work of Bob Brownley.
No one else in Wall Street had the power, the nerve, and the devilish
cruelty to rip things as they had been ripped during the last twenty
minutes. The night before I had passed Bob in the theatre lobby. I gave
him close scrutiny and saw the look of which I of all men best knew the
meaning. The big brown eyes were set on space; the outer corners of the
handsome mouth were drawn hard and tense as though weighted. As I had my
wife with me it was impossible to follow him, but when I got home I called
up his house and his clubs, intending to ask, him to run up and smoke a
cigar with me, but could locate him nowhere. I tried again in the morning
without success, but when just before noon the tape began to jump and
flash and snarl, I remembered Bob's ugly mood, and all it portended.