The trader grinned sardonically. "There's a lot in the papers that oughtn't to be there," he rejoined, "and there's a long sight more that isn't there, but ought to be. There's only one explanation of this. The public are ninety-five per cent long of stocks, and the insiders are getting them! That's all; it's the same old game."
Atherton reflected. "But the warships--" he queried.
"All in your eye," was the trader's response. "It will be denied to-morrow. But they're doing just as much damage," he added, with a gesture toward the board, "as if they were real. When the crowd takes fright, it's all over. Down go stocks, and then the big men load up again at the bottom, and sell again at the top. It's what you might call a crime, if you dared to."
At this new view of the stock market, Atherton felt more perplexed than ever. "Then you think they'll rally?" he ventured.
"Sure," his informant agreed, "but you can't tell how much lower they'll go first. It all depends on how heavily the public is in the market. I know what the bears are aiming at, and that's one hundred and twenty on Steel; that was the old low, six weeks ago. If it goes through there, good-night."
Atherton shuddered, for by coincidence this was precisely the point at which his stop order would be reached. Yet he hesitated to put much confidence in this stray acquaintance and his theories. Big men slaughtering the public so wantonly, false reports in circulation, prices being swayed, not by basic conditions, but by manipulation and by such strange fetishes as "new lows"--if all these things were true, his faith in human nature and in the goodness of the world had been sadly misplaced. "But look here," he objected, "Steel can't go down like this. Why, the earnings for the last quarter--"
The trader's grin widened, and for the first time he turned away from the board and gazed squarely at Atherton, as if at some new and interesting specimen of mankind. "Earnings," he repeated vaguely, and still again, more forcibly, "Earnings!" And at last, as though realizing the inadequacy of speech, he muttered tolerantly and not unkindly, "Oh, hell--" and turning on his heel, walked over toward the board.
Atherton, bewildered and abashed, stole back to his alcove, and sat down to watch the progress of the fight. In his mind, he pictured to himself the rival armies--the bears red-faced, scowling, domineering men, objectionable to a degree, pirates of the Exchange, attempting to wreck a stock like Steel; the bulls sane, conservative men of affairs, shrewd judges of fundamental conditions, men, in fact, much like himself. And he could not doubt that the bulls would win. Up went Steel an eighth, and he thrilled with pride for those who were defending it; down it went a quarter, and he shook with fear of these reckless raiders and highwaymen.
And so the battle raged. Two o'clock came and went, and suddenly Atherton realized the sensations of a wearied fighter in the ring, striving to hold his own until the clanging of the gong to mark the end of the round. "If only it holds another hour," he thought. Then he would at least have a respite until the following morning, a chance to decide matters at his leisure without this frightful accompaniment of sound and fury, this whirling maelstrom of men seeking desperately to make new dollars or trying more desperately still to cling to the dollars they already owned. If the market would only hold--
But even as these thoughts were shaping in his mind, there came a furious onslaught from the bears. One hundred and twenty-three for Steel, twenty-two and a half, twenty-two, twenty-one and three quarters. He could feel the blood surging to his brain, and his hands clenched as though he were fighting physically for victory. Then a rally and a long fight around twenty-three. But he could feel, with a gambler's instinct, that there was no life to the advance, and sure enough, as he had feared, presently the tide began once more to ebb. Twenty-two again, twenty-one and a half, then suddenly, with a bull-like bellow from Demming, one hundred and twenty-one, twenty and seven-eighths. For the fiftieth time he glanced up at the clock; two, thirty-five; only twenty-five minutes more, but less than a point lay between him and virtual ruin. His lip trembled, his knees shook under him, and without realizing that there was anything incongruous in such a proceeding, he began to pray fervently, imploringly--