The Apple of Discord

by Earle Ashley Walcott

The Exchange was not altogether a novelty to me, and after I had become accustomed to the confusion of sight and sound, I had no difficulty in discerning the progress of the struggle that was going on before me. It needed no broker to tell me that a hot financial battle was being fought in that confined arena. A novice in trade could have seen that there was a determined effort to break the market, met by an equally determined effort to uphold it. The attacking force had strong support. The alarms and anxieties caused by the signs of approaching trouble had brought into the market the stocks held by small margins, those of frightened investors, and those held by speculative merchants who found their credits suddenly shortened. The rumors of coming disorder had also brought to the bear side the professional traders who foresaw a probable fall in prices, and by sales for future delivery did their utmost to bring it about for their own profit.

But there were strong influences on the other side. And though each call of stock was followed by an avalanche of offers, I soon observed that every stock after a sharp decline was brought back to something near its former quotations. I surmised that the steadying hand of the syndicate was at work. It was not for nothing that Wharton Kendrick had held his midnight session with the financial barons of the city.

As the session wore away with fierce assault and resolute defense, with detonations of cries and shouts, with surges and clashes of conflicting factions of traders, I thought I saw an air of disappointment settling on the face of Peter Bolton. He spoke sharply to the brokers that from time to time he summoned about him. These conferences were followed by renewed activities and fresh outbreaks of sound among the gyrating, dissolving groups upon the floor; but after a flutter of changing prices the quotations returned to the level from which they started.

The session came to an end at last, and the throng of men poured out of the Exchange, bearing on their faces the record of success and failure, of excitement and fatigue, that had been scored by the morning's work. But so far as the official figures of the session showed it might have been a time of stagnation instead of fierce battle. The closing prices were not a point away from those that ruled at the close of the previous day.

"The El Dorado Bank has run against a snag this time," said one broker to his neighbor, as he wiped his perspiring face and adjusted his limp collar.

"The El Dorado Bank isn't the only one to feel a little sick over the morning's business," said his companion, with a toss of his thumb toward the bowed figure of Peter Bolton huddled in the seat by the rail and contemplating with vacant intentness the floor of the deserted pit. "Old Tightfist must have dropped a pile of money here to-day."

"He?" exclaimed his companion. "Not much he didn't. He always caught the turn at just the right minute. When the books are made up he's as likely to be ahead as behind."

"He has the devil's own luck," said the first broker.

"He found out what he was bucking against early in the game," said the other, "and after that he didn't need anybody to tell him when to get out."

As the throng passed out, Peter Bolton still sat in his seat by the rail. A grim air of reflection was on his face, the lines of stern determination still drew his chin forward and his lips back, and he studied the floor of the Exchange as though it were a blackboard on which his problem was being worked out. Then at last he slowly rose, and with a sour shake of his head walked toward the door, I turned my eyes on the clock in the hope of escaping his observation; but as he came by my seat he halted.