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Colonel Carter of Cartersville by Francis Hopkinson Smith
page 78 of 149 (52%)
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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