25,000 at 19, 18, 15, 10." Hell was now loose. Back and forth, up against
the rail, around the room and back and around again, the crowd surged for
fifteen of the wildest, craziest minutes in the history of the New York
Stock Exchange, a history replete with records of wild and crazy scenes.

At last from sheer exhaustion there came a ten minutes' lull, which was
used in comparing trades. At the beginning of the respite Sugar was
selling at 155, for in that quarter-hour of madness it had broken from 210
to 155, but when the ten minutes had elapsed, the stock had worked back to
167. Barry Conant had again taken the centre of the crowd after hastily
scanning the brief notes handed him by messenger-boys and giving orders to
his lieutenants. He had evidently received reinforcements in the form of
renewed orders from his principals. Many of the faces that fringed the
inner circle of that crowd were frightful to look upon, some white as
though just lifted from hospital pillows, others red to the verge of
apoplexy--all strained as though awaiting the coming of the jury with a
life or death verdict. They all knew that Bob had sold more than a hundred
thousand shares of Sugar upon which the profits must be more than four
million dollars. Would he resume selling or was he through? Was it short
stock, which must be bought back, or long stock; and if long, whose stock?
Were the insiders selling out on one another, or were they all selling
together, and under cover of Barry Conant's movements were Camemeyer and
"Standard Oil" emptying their bag preparatory to the slaughter of the
Washington contingent? All these questions were rushing through the heads
of that crowd of brokers like steam through a boiler, now hot, now cold,
but always at high pressure, for upon the correctness of the answers
depended the fortune of many who breathlessly awaited the renewal or the
suspension of the contest. Even Barry Conant's usually impassive face wore
a tinge of anxiety.