Colonel Carter of Cartersville by Francis Hopkinson Smith
page 78 of 149 (52%)
page 78 of 149 (52%)
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Loosened from Fitz's pinioning grasp, the colonel, entirely oblivious
to his friend's sudden interest in the coal-field, and slightly impatient at the delay, bounded like a balloon with its anchors cut. "An answer from the syndicate within a week! My dear Fitz, I see yo' drift. You have kept the Garden Spots for the foreign investors. That man is impressed, suh; I saw it in his eye." The room began filling up with the various customers and loungers common to such offices: the debonair gentleman in check trousers and silk hat, with a rose in his button-hole, who dusts his trousers broadside with his cane--short of one hundred shares with thirty per cent. margin; the shabby old man with a solemn face who watches the ticker a moment and then wanders aimlessly out, looking more like an underpaid clerk in a law office than the president of a crosstown railroad--long of one thousand shares with no margin at all; the nervous man who stops the messenger boys and devours the sales' lists before they can be skewered on the files,--not a dollar's interest either way; and, last of all, the brokers with little pads and nimble pencils. [Illustration] The news that the great English syndicate was looking into the C. & W. A. L R. R. was soon around the office, and each _habitue_ had a bright word for the colonel, congratulating him on the favorable turn his affairs had taken. All but old Klutchem, a broker in unlisted securities, who had been trying for weeks to get a Denver land scheme before the same syndicate, and had failed. |
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