"They'll slaughter you," said Gretry, "slaughter you in cold blood. You're just one man against a gang—a gang of cutthroats. Those Bears have got millions and millions back of them. You don't suppose, do you, that old man Crookes, or Kenniston, or little Sweeny, or all that lot would give you one little bit of a chance for your life if they got a grip on you. Cover your shorts if you want to, but, for God's sake, don't begin to buy in the same breath. You wait a while. If this market has touched bottom, we'll be able to tell in a few days. I'll admit, for the sake of argument, that just now there's a pause. But nobody can tell whether it will turn up or down yet. Now's the time to be conservative, to play it cautious."
"If I was conservative and cautious," answered Jadwin, "I wouldn't be in this game at all. I'd be buying U.S. four percents. That's the big mistake so many of these fellows down here make. They go into a game where the only ones who can possibly win are the ones who take big chances, and then they try to play the thing cautiously. If I wait a while till the market turns up and everybody is buying, how am I any the better off? No, sir, you buy the September option for me to-morrow—five hundred thousand bushels. I deposited the margin to your credit in the Illinois Trust this afternoon."
There was a long silence. Gretry spun a ball between his fingers, top-fashion.
"Well," he said at last, hesitatingly, "well—I don't know, J.—you are either Napoleonic—or—or a colossal idiot."
"Neither one nor the other, Samuel. I'm just using a little common sense.... Is it your shot?"
"I'm blessed if I know."
"Well, we'll start a new game. Sam, I'll give you six balls and beat you in"—he looked at his watch—"beat you before half-past nine."
"For a dollar?"
"I never bet, Sam, and you know it."
Half an hour later Jadwin said: