All Story Magazine, December 1913 — page 63: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A THIEVES’ COMEDY. * But they don’t like that in the least. T thought they were brokers’ clerks at first until Rollins, who had piloted me past the doorkeeper, told me that every man on the floor was a member; and, with his chest out, added that the cheapest “seat had sold for forty- eight thousand dollars, while the ma- jority had cost twice as much. There was nothing _ particularly “Jarge”’ in the atmosphere, the big- gest things about the place being the great ‘* blackboards ” set into the right and left walls, which signal to mem- bers by electrically displaying their seat numbers that they are wanted at the telephone. The floor was strewn with papers— square-cut slips mostly—and sprinkled generously with water to keep down the dust. Boys in blue-gray uniforms scurried hither and thither, without any apparent objective, while members either lounged about the several posts, answered calls or threw things — words, peanuts, and paper pellets—at one another. Some one beneath the gallery was courting laryngitis shouting some- thing or other at “thirty-eight thou- sand.”’ There were half a dozen men stand- ing within six inches of him, paying not the slightest heed, and he finally ceased yelping, chucked a handful of white, square-cut slips at no head in particular, and strolled aimlessly up the floor with his hands deep in his pockets, not seeming to care a rap whether any one took any interest in his “ thirty-eight thousand ” or not, “Those are the bond men,’ Rollins informed me, referring to the gentle- men under the gallery. “ Bonds are very slow just now. But I think if you wait a little while, and watch post No. 3, there will be a stir of some sort. When you get tired take a stroll down to the curb-market. I'll meet you down- stairs about one.” As he went out I wondered if he were going to appear on the floor per- sonally, but almost before he had 773 turned the corner toward the liit I heard a staccato voice call: “Ninety-five for any part of ten thousand Rand Island! ” Turning my head, I found that men all over the floor were directing their attentions toward post No. 3, which had suddenly awakened into a sem- blance of activity, with a big, broad- faced man in the center of it looking about him heavily from under deep, black, bushy eyebrows. “Ninety-five for any part of ten thousand!” he cried again, and the buzz of comment grew louder. There were no sellers. Some of the members round him grinned, and he studied them with something akin to disgust, until a little man with a black, straggling beard squeezed his way into their midst and piped in a squeaky voice: “Par for ten thousand!” He did not get up on the seat, and he was almost too small to be seen among the crowd that was quickly con- verging toward post No. 3. The big man looked down upon him and, amid an excited hum, could be heard to say quite plainly: “T'd like to call your bluff, Secken- dorf; but what's the use? One hun- dred and five for any part of ten thou- sand!” The bid came from him with the sharpness of a challenge, and I knew the game had begun. Turning and elbowing his way out of the crowd, the little man scurried away. His challenger laughed, said something I did not catch, and, after a few minutes’ wait, bid 110 for five thousand. : Still no sellers. Considering the jumps the stock was taking. a strange lack of excitement marked the attitude of the majority of the members on the floor. Most of them looked sullen: some stood aloof and watched; the others crowded about the big man, with an eye upon the tele- phone signal-boards, rushing off when their numbers appeared and rushing comicloooks.com