"Yes. Oh, that was long ago. In seventy-eight it was—the September option. And the Board made wheat in the cars 'regular.'"
His voice trailed off into silence, and he looked vaguely about on the floor of the room, sucking in his cheeks, and passing the edge of one large, osseous hand across his lips.
"Well, you lost all your money that time, I believe. Scannel, your partner, sold out on you."
"Hey? It was in seventy-eight.... The secretary of the Board announced our suspension at ten in the morning. If the Board had not voted to make wheat in the cars 'regular'—"
He went on and on, in an impassive monotone, repeating, word for word, the same phrases he had used for so long that they had lost all significance.
"Well," broke in Jadwin, at last, "it was Scannel your partner, did for you. Scannel, I say. You know, Dave Scannel."
The old man looked at him confusedly. Then, as the name forced itself upon the atrophied brain, there flashed, for one instant, into the pale, blurred eye, a light, a glint, a brief, quick spark of an old, long-forgotten fire. It gleamed there an instant, but the next sank again.
Plaintively, querulously he repeated:
"It was in seventy-eight.... I lost three hundred thousand dollars."
"How's your little niece getting on?" at last demanded Jadwin.