the last fellow in the world to be trusted with any business
responsibility. But the thunder of the streets around the Board of
Trade, and, above all, the movement and atmosphere of the floor
itself awoke within him a very different Landry Court; a whole new
set of nerves came into being with the tap of the nine-thirty gong,
a whole new system of brain machinery began to move with the first
figure called in the Pit. And from that instant until the close of
the session, no floor trader, no broker's clerk nor scalper was more
alert, more shrewd, or kept his head more surely than the same young
fellow who confused his social engagements for the evening of the
same day. The Landry Court the Dearborn girls knew was a far
different young man from him who now leaned his elbows on the arms
of the chair upon the floor of the Board, and, his eyes narrowing,
his lips tightening, began to speculate upon what was to be the
temper of the Pit that morning.

Meanwhile the floor was beginning to fill up. Over in the railed-in
space, where the hundreds of telegraph instruments were in place,
the operators were arriving in twos and threes. They hung their hats
and ulsters upon the pegs in the wall back of them, and in linen
coats, or in their shirt-sleeves, went to their seats, or, sitting
upon their tables, called back and forth to each other, joshing,
cracking jokes. Some few addressed themselves directly to work, and
here and there the intermittent clicking of a key began, like a
diligent cricket busking himself in advance of its mates.

From the corridors on the ground floor up through the south doors
came the pit traders in increasing groups. The noise of footsteps
began to echo from the high vaulting of the roof. A messenger boy
crossed the floor chanting an unintelligible name.