if you knew you could sell it over again at a profit. Now here's the
chance to make really a fine Bear deal. Why, as soon as this news
gets on the floor there, the price will bust right down, and down,
and down. Porteous and his crowd couldn't keep it up to save 'em
from the receiver's hand one single minute."

"I know, Sam," answered Jadwin, "and the trouble is, not that I
don't want to speculate, but that I do--too much. That's why I said
I'd keep out of it. It isn't so much the money as the fun of playing
the game. With half a show, I would get in a little more and a
little more, till by and by I'd try to throw a big thing, and
instead, the big thing would throw me. Why, Sam, when you told me
that that wreck out there mumbling a sandwich was Hargus, it made me
turn cold."

"Yes, in your feet," retorted Gretry. "I'm not asking you to risk
all your money, am I, or a fifth of it, or a twentieth of it? Don't
be an ass, J. Are we a conservative house, or aren't we? Do I talk
like this when I'm not sure? Look here. Let me sell a million
bushels for you. Yes, I know it's a bigger order than I've handled
for you before. But this time I want to go right into it, head down
and heels up, and get a twist on those Porteous buckoes, and raise
'em right out of their boots. We get a crop report this morning, and
if the visible supply is as large as I think it is, the price will
go off and unsettle the whole market. I'll sell short for you at the
best figures we can get, and you can cover on the slump any time
between now and the end of May."

Jadwin hesitated. In spite of himself he felt a Chance had come.
Again that strange sixth sense of his, the inexplicable instinct,