poured out half a glass, emptied it into his person with one gulp,
and with the remark in a low voice to himself that he was now
"copper fastened inside and out"--removed all traces of the
incident and took up his morning's mail.

By this time the circle of chairs facing the huge blackboard in
the spacious outer office had begun to fill up. Some of the
customers, before taking their seats, hurried anxiously to the
ticker, chattering away in its glass case; others turned abruptly
and left the room without a word. Now and then a customer would
dive into Breen's private room, remain a moment and burst out
again, his face an index of the condition of his bank account.

When the chatter of the ticker had shifted from the London
quotations to the opening sales on the Exchange, a sallow-faced
clerk mounted a low step-ladder and swept a scurry of chalk marks
over the huge blackboard, its margin lettered with the initials of
the principal stocks. The appearance of this nimble-fingered young
man with his piece of chalk always impressed Jack as a sort of
vaudeville performance. On ordinary days, with the market
lifeless, but half of the orchestra seats would be occupied. In
whirl-times, with the ticker spelling ruin, not only were the
chairs full, but standing room only was available in the offices.

Their occupants came from all classes; clerks from up-town dry-
goods houses, who had run down during lunch time to see whether
U.P. or Erie, or St. Paul had moved up an eighth, or down a
quarter, since they had devoured the morning papers on their way
to town; old speculators who had spent their lives waiting
buzzard-like for some calamity, enabling them to swoop down and