Winston laughed. "I want to know which a wise man would do."
"Well," said Graham, "I can't tell you. The bulls rushed wheat up as I wired you, but the other folks got their claws in and worried it down again. Wheat's anywhere and nowhere all the time, and I'm advising nobody just now. No doubt you've formed your own opinion."
Winston nodded. "It's the last of the grapple, and the bears aren't quite beaten yet, but any time the next week or two the decisive turn will come. Then, if they haven't got out, there'll be very little left of them."
"You seem tolerably sure of the thing. Got plenty of confidence in the bulls?"
Winston smiled. "I fancy I know how Western wheat was sown this year better than any statistician of the ring, and it's not the bulls I'm counting on, but those millions of hungry folks in the old country. It's not New York or Chicago, but Liverpool the spark is coming from."
"Well," said Graham, "that's my notion, too, but I've no time for anybody who hasn't grist for me just now. Still, I'd be glad to come round and take you home to supper if you haven't the prejudice, which is not unknown at Silverdale, against eating with a man who makes his dollars on the market and didn't get them given him."
Winston laughed, and held up a lean brown hand. "All I ever had until less than a year ago, I earned with that. I'll be ready for you."
He went out with Alfreton, and noticed that the lad ate little at lunch. When the meal was over, he glanced at him with a smile through the cigar smoke.
"I think it would do you good to take me into your confidence," he said.
"Well," said Alfreton, "it would be a relief to talk, and I feel I could trust you. Still, it's only fair to tell you I didn't at the beginning. I was an opinionated ass, you see."