Omega felt the results of the nervousness and depression, and opened at seventy-five.
There was a moment's buzz—the quiet of a crowd expectant of great events. Then Wallbridge charged into the throng with a roar. I could not distinguish his words, but I knew that he was carrying out my order to drop five thousand shares on the market. At his cry there was an answering roar, and the scene upon the floor turned to a riot. Men rushed hither and thither, screaming, shouting, waving their arms, pushing, jostling, tearing each other to get into the midst of the throng, whirling about, mobbing first one and then another of the leather-lunged leaders who furnished at each moment fresh centers for the outbreak of disorder. How the market was going, I could only guess. At Wallbridge's onset I saw Lattimer and Eppner make a dive for him and then separate, following other shouting, screaming madmen who pirouetted about the floor and tried to save themselves from a mobbing. I heard seventy shouted from one direction, but could not make out whether it set the price of the stock or not. The din was too confusing for me to follow the course of events.
At last Wallbridge staggered up to the rail, flushed, collarless and panting for breath, with his hat a hopeless wreck.
“We've done it!” he gasped in my ear. “The dogs of war are making the fur fly down here, you bet! Don't you wish you was in it?”
“No, I don't!” I shouted decidedly. “How does it go?”
“I sold down to seventy-one—average seventy-three, I guess—and she's piling in fit to break the floor.”
“Did Lattimer and Eppner get your stock?” I could not help asking.
“They got about three thousand of it. Rosenheim got the rest.”
I remembered Rosenheim as the agent of Decker, and sighed. But Lattimer and Eppner were busy, and I had hopes.
“Where is it now?” I asked.