“Is he? Then you think he would rather sell than buy?”
Mr. Wheatstone laughed and looked admiringly at his leader. “He may have to.”
Mr. Ault took up the cable cipher and read it to himself again. If Mr. Hunt had known its contents he need not have waited for Philip to telegraph “no” from Washington.
“It's all right, Wheatstone. It's the biggest thing you ever struck. Pitch 'em overboard in the morning. The Street is shaky about Argentine. There'll be h—-to pay before half past twelve. I guess you can safely go ten points. Lower yet, if Mavick's brokers begin to unload. I guess he will have to unless he can borrow. Rumor is a big thing, especially in a panic, eh? Keep your eye peeled. And, oh, won't you ask Babcock to step round here?”
Mr. Babcock came round, and had his instructions when to buy. He had the reputation of being a reckless broker, and not a safe man to follow.
The panic next day, both in London and New York, was long remembered. In the unreasoning scare the best stocks were sacrificed. Small country “investors” lost their stakes. Some operators were ruined. Many men were poorer at the end of the scrimmage, and a few were richer. Murad Ault was one of the latter. Mavick pulled through, though at an enormous cost, and with some diminution of the notion of his solidity. The wise ones suspected that his resources had been overestimated, or that they were not so well at his command as had been supposed.
When he went home that night he looked five years older, and was too worn and jaded to be civil to his family. The dinner passed mostly in silence. Carmen saw that something serious had happened. Lord Montague had called.
“Eh, what did he want?” said Mavick, surlily.
Carmen looked up surprised. “What does anybody after a reception call for?”
“The Lord only knows.”