In an instant, a hundred men who had been chatting with one another in the pit, and as many more, as if by magic, leaped out of hiding, and a howl went up. They gathered in knots around the poles, pushing, pulling, yelling like demons, waving their arms aloft with fingers open, closed, or separated—a deaf mute alphabet used by these delirious men to buy or sell; and as they screamed and screeched and pushed and swore in a mad scramble, fortunes melted away or were created.
And on one side of that fiscal arena, tall, gaunt, with a fringe of gray hair about his poll, and watching with eyes as merciless as a lynx ready to spring, stood Simmons.
On the other, as alert, but younger, with the easy sang froid of one skilled in this battle of values, stood Page.
Full well he knew what his enemy's tactics would be, and that when the crowd began to rally around the Rockhaven pole, he would creep up like a panther, and at the right moment overbid the highest. None were buyers, for none wanted Rockhaven at its present price, except frightened bears seeking to cover, and well Simmons knew it.
And so did Page, with his four thousand shares, waiting for the bear panic sure to come.
Rockhaven's turn now came. It opened at sixteen, then up to seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, without a halt; a breathless trio in the balcony attentively watched the dial where its price was recorded, or Page, who held their fortunes in his hand.
And then came the panic; for it had reached twenty, and Simmons, like a spectre, advanced, bidding twenty-one for ten thousand shares!
Then two bears, short as much each at five and six, lost their heads.
Up, up it went by leaps of two, three, and five points, bid by these half-crazed speculators, while Page eyed Simmons.