"Like old times!" said a hurrying clerk; but the man he spoke to sniffed contemptuously, being by nature one of that sour class from which all beardom is recruited.
"Like old times!" chuckled a man standing at the Bodega bar, a little dazed with his prosperity. Somebody reminded him of the other booms that had come and undergone sudden collapse, but the man standing at the counter twiddled the stem of the glass in his hand and smiled indulgently.
"Industrials are the feature," said an evening paper, and indeed the biggest figures behind the tiny plus marks were those against the famous commercial concerns best known in the city. The breweries, the bakeries, the cotton corporations, the textile manufacturing companies enjoying quotation in the share list—all these participated in the upward rush; nay, led the van.
Into Old Broad Street, on one day at the height of the boom, came a man a little above middle height, clean-shaven, his face the brick-tan of one who spends much of his life in the open air. He wore a suit of blue serge, well-cut but plain, a spotless grey Tirai hat, broad-brimmed, white spats over his patent shoes, and a thin cane in his hand. "A fellow in the Kaffir market" guessed one of the group about the corner of 'Change Alley, but somebody better informed turned hastily when he saw the quick, striding figure approaching, and dived down a side court.
A showily attired young man, standing on the edge of the pavement chewing a quill toothpick thoughtfully, did not see the newcomer until he was close on him, then started and changed colour. The man in the wide-brimmed hat recognised him and nodded. He checked his walk and stopped.
"Here's Moss," he said. He had a snappy, curt delivery and a disconcerting habit of addressing one in the third person. "How is Moss? Straight now? Straight as a die, I'll swear. He's given up rigging, given up Punk Prospectuses for Petty Punters. Oh, Moss! Moss!"
He shook his head with gentle melancholy, though a light twinkled in his humorous grey eyes.
"I don't know why you're so 'ard on me, Mister Smith," said the embarrassed Moss; "we've all got our faults——"
"Not me, Mr. Moss," said T. B. Smith promptly.
"I dessay even you, sir," insisted the other. "I've 'ad my flutter; and I failed. There's lots of people who've done more than I ever done, worse things, and crookeder things, who are livin' in what I might call the odour of sanctity.