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.
