"They're hammering things pretty hard on the exchanges," said Partridge after greetings had been made. "Prices are holding up well, so far, but I guess we'll have to put a brace under some of those fellows inside of half an hour." And with a clouded brow he studied the strip that came from the ticker.
"Carey and Son are shaky," said Nelson. "So are Benbow and Johnson, and a dozen others. And worst of all we've got to put some more coin into those confounded banks."
"It's like throwing the money away," groaned Partridge. "They can't put up collateral that a gambler would look at."
Nelson adjusted his gold-rimmed eye-glasses to look at his list of suspects, and gave his head a shake.
"Well, we've got to keep them afloat till these troubles are over," he said with decision.
"And the infernal part of it is," said Partridge, "that those fellows know it. I'd give a thousand dollars out of my own pocket, if we could let them drop without hurting any one else." And he resumed his study of the ticker with an irritated face.
The noise of the shouting crowds that filled and surrounded the exchanges floated up through the windows, rising and falling like the roar of ocean breakers. There was a curious variation of quality in the swelling volumes of sound. Now it expressed apprehension; now desperation; and again there was the tonic roar of exultation rising above the lesser cries.
We had not been in consultation ten minutes when the first application for support came from a pale but assertive man who tried to conceal his desperation under an air of bluster.
"Manning, of Smith and Manning," whispered Nelson to me, as the man entered the door.
He began to explain his business in roundabout phrase.