THE BUBBLE BURSTS
In response to Winn's summons, dressed in a somewhat faded and nondescript garb, with bell-crowned silk hat of ancient style, Jess Hutton reached the city.
And he was a picture!
His coat, a surtout with small gilt buttons, a reddish brown vest, trousers of gray mixed stuff, a high collar with black satin stock, and his ruddy brown face with fringe of gray beard and keen twinkling blue eyes made him conspicuous. He carried a cane, limping a little as always, and when he greeted Winn on the station platform, the latter felt that all Rockhaven had arrived.
"Ain't this a leetle sudden?" he said, when the two had shaken hands. "I sorter cac'lated ye'd send fer me, an' when I got the message I thought o' old Abner Tucker's tombstone. He'd allus been skeered o' lightnin', an' when he got hit his widder had his stun sot up 'n' put on't, 'I 'spected this, but not so soon.'"
"I'm glad you came," said Winn, heartily, "and hope you have brought all the stock I sold on the island."
"Oh, I fetched it all, even the parson's, 'n' he told me a blessin' went with hisn," responded Jess.
And then Winn, more light-hearted than ever before in his life, hurried the old man into a carriage.
"We are to keep in hiding," he said, "until my friends say the word, and then I'll take you to the stock exchange and we will see our stock sold."
"I don't see no use in hidin' in this 'ere jumble o' humanity," asserted Jess, as their vehicle became entangled in a street blockade, "the puzzle on't here 'ud be to find anybody ye wanted."
"It's best that we hide, however," replied Winn. "If Weston caught sight of either of us, he would know our errand here at once."
"I don't cac'late he'd 'member me," said Jess, "though I'd recklect them gray stun'sls o' hisn out o' a million."
And Winn, contrasting the old man's present raiment with what he usually wore, concluded he was right.
But that evening, when Page and Nickerson were ushered into the room where Jess was held in (to him) durance vile, there was a scene.
"I'm powerful glad to meet ye, gentlemen," Jess asserted, shaking the hand of each in a way that made them wince, "I'd a sorter cac'lated brokers had horns 'n' claws the way ye're spoken on, but ye look purty harmless. I suppose ye air brokers," looking from one to the other, "an' which sort air ye, bulls or bears?"
"Either one or the other, as occasion serves," answered Page, laughing heartily. "We get together and toss or claw one another, according to the market, and when the fracas is over, count our cash and go out and drink to each other's good luck."
And this, be it said, fairly expresses the financial warfare daily waged "on 'change."
"I've read 'bout yer doin's," continued Jess, "an' I allus cac'lated ye were all a purty slick crowd o' deceivers, an' best ter steer clear on. I'm a sort o' an old barnacle livin' on an island, 'n' when this 'ere Weston woke me up one day, I made a fairly good dicker with him, an' 'long come this young man, 'n' I'll own up I kinder took ter him, bein's I hadn't chick nor child 'n' nothin' fer company but an old fiddle, 'n' just ter help him out, bought a leetle stock. I got a few o' the rest to buy some, 'greein' I'd see they wasn't to lose by it. I fetched it 'long, 'n' I tell ye, Mr. Hardy, yer message has stirred up quite a fuss. I'll bet yer landlady, the Widder Moore, hain't slept a wink sense, 'n' if Roby hadn't been obligated to Uncle Sam, he'd 'a' started fer the mainland that night."
"You are just in time, Mr. Hutton," observed Page, interested in this honest old man at once, "and unless all signs fail, I'll sell your stock to-morrow at ten or twenty times its cost. How would you like to carry back five thousand dollars for yourself and double that to distribute among your friends?"
"They'd all hev fits," answered Jess, "an' 'ud quit fishin' an' start to quarryin' right away. But I don't cac'late ye will, Mr. Page, an' we'll all on us be satisfied to git our hats back. Hope ye may, though; but thar's no use in countin' chickens till they're hatched."
And Jess Hutton, the cool and collected philosopher that he was, did not for one moment hope even that he would more than receive his money back. In his understanding of the matter, this quoted price for the stock was a mere fiction, and he felt sure that when it was actually offered for sale, no one would buy. To him it seemed like selling so much air. Never in his life had he set foot in a stock exchange, and when the next day, just as the great clock in the exchange marked nine-fifty, and he with Winn and Nickerson took seats in the gallery, no hint of the coming turmoil came to Jess, and fortunately no suspicion of his or Hardy's presence in the city had reached Weston or Simmons.
Then the gong sounded and bedlam ensued.
