"Good-by—" Zabriskie had hung up the receiver.
James sat staring at the tape like a paralytic staring at death. The minutes lengthened into an hour—into two hours. No one disturbed him—when the battle is on who thinks of the "honorary commander"? At one o'clock he shook himself, brushed his hand over his eyes—quotations of Woolens were reeling off the tape, alternating with quotations of Great Lakes.
"Zabriskie is selling our Woolens," he thought. Then, with a blinding flash the truth struck through his brain. He gave a loud cry between a sob and a shriek and, flinging his arms at full length upon his desk, buried his face between them and burst into tears.
"Ruined! Ruined! Ruined!" And his shoulders, his whole body, shook like a child in a paroxysm.
A long, long ring at the telephone. Fanning-Smith, irritated by the insistent jingling so close to his ear, lifted himself and answered—the tears were guttering his swollen face; his lips and eyelids were twitching.
"Well?" he said feebly.
"We've got 'em on the run," came the reply in Zabriskie's voice, jubilant now.
"Who?"
"Don't know who—whoever was trying to squeeze us. I had to throw over some Woolens—but I'll pick it up again—maybe to-day."
Fanning-Smith could hear the roar of the Exchange—wilder, fiercer than three hours before, but music to him now. He looked sheepishly at the portrait of his grandfather. When its eyes met his he flushed and shifted his gaze guiltily. "Must have been something I ate for breakfast," he muttered to the portrait and to himself in apologetic explanation of his breakdown.