“Again? That’s all the stock we have,” said Lang, not understanding, but Carroll broke in eagerly.
“We’ll go short now. She’s going lower. What margin——”
“I’ll sell for you on a ten-point margin. Yes, I’ll make it eight points, on this market. I’m selling myself.”
Dixon’s manner was perceptibly livelier. Lang protested, startled at the idea of using the money as gambling margin.
“Oh, just as you like,” said the broker with impatience. “I never advise customers. I only tell ’em what I think. I think the time has come for Yuma Oil to break. The ring up North has let go. I think it’s good for ten to twenty points down. I’m playing it across the board, myself.”
“Don’t be a fool!” insisted Carroll explosively. He chewed his cigar in one corner of his mouth and spoke with the other, feverish, hungering. “Don’t you see the chance we’ve got? With a run of luck we’ll wipe out Rockett’s whole loss.”
The excitement of the game was beginning to gain upon Lang himself. He made a rapid calculation.
“Eight points? We might sell—let’s sell five hundred shares, then.”
If they lost it there would be still nearly two thousand dollars left. Dixon snapped at the order slip and had it almost instantly on the wire. They got it executed at 57, and the stock was still falling by eighths. Then in a flurry it dropped half a point at a time, rallied a little, and broke heavily to 55, then to 54, and within fifteen minutes to 53. They were two thousand dollars ahead—on paper.
As comparatively high players now, Dixon installed them in armchairs in his private office, close to the New York ticker. His cold punctiliousness of manner broke down; he hurried from them to his cotton customers, almost excited, almost talkative, and they watched the clattering tape slowly spinning out its cabalistic figures straight from the great gambling house in lower New York.