Then he hurried out, and dodged and twisted and ran through those crowded and sunless cañons of business where only a narrow strip of earth’s high-arching sky showed overhead. As he turned from William Street into Hanover Square, through the second tier of half-opened plate glass windows he could already hear the dull roar of the Cotton Pit. The grim day’s business, he knew, was already under way.
Four policemen guarded the elevators leading to the spectator’s gallery. The place was crowded to the doors; no more were to be admitted. Durkin, however, pushed resolutely through the staggering mass, and elbowed and twisted his way slowly up the stairs. Here again another row of guards confronted him. A man at his side was excitedly explaining that the Weather Bureau had just issued flood warnings, for danger line stages in the lower Black Warrior of Alabama and the Chattahoochee of Georgia. And that ought to hold the “bears” back, the man declared, as Durkin elbowed his way in to the guards.
“No use, mister, we can’t let you in,” said a perspiring officer.
He stood with his back to the closed door. At each entrance a fellow-officer stood in the same position. The receipts at Bombay, for the half-week, cried still another excited follower of the market, were only thirty-eight thousands bales.
“Hey, stand back there! Let ’em out! Here’s a woman fainted!” came the cry from within, and the doors were swung wide to allow the woman to be carried through.
Durkin wedged a five-dollar bill down between the guarding policeman’s fingers.
“There’s your chance. For God’s sake, get me in!”
The doors were already being closed, and the din within again shut off from the listening crowd in the hallway.
“Here, stand back! Gentleman’s got a ticket!” and without further ado the big officer cannonaded him into the midst of the gallery mob.
Once there, Durkin edged round by the wall, squeezed himself unceremoniously out, until, at last, he came to the brass railing guarding the edge of the spectator’s gallery. Then he took a deep breath, and gazed down at the sea of commotion that boiled and eddied at his feet.