Ranged along the entire east wall are the clacking instruments of the various telegraph companies for the use of the brokers and firms trading on the Winnipeg Exchange. Telephone booths at the north, seats for friends of members on the west side, weather maps, etc., beneath the gallery—these complete the equipment of the big chamber.
The group about the Pit, waiting for the market to open, grows rapidly as 9.30 approaches. Members of the Exchange saunter in from the smoking-room, swap good-natured banter or confer earnestly with their representatives on the floor. In response to the megaphoned bellow of a call boy, individuals hurry to the telephone booths. Messengers shove about, looking for certain brokers. The market is very unsteady; it may go up or down. The men are clustering about the Pit now; most of them are in their shirt-sleeves and they are on tip-toe like sprinters who wait for the starter's pistol. Some of them have instructions to dump wheat on the market; some have been told to buy. Hundreds of thousands of bushels will change hands in the first few minutes. The market may go up or it may go—
Bang goes the gong! They're off! Above the red abbreviation, OCT., at the bottom of the big clock the blood-red figure 5 indicates the opening of the market at $1.45 even. With a mad swirl the trading begins in a roar of voices. A small forest of arms waves wildly above jostling bodies. Traders dive for each other, clutch each other and watch the clock. The red figure 5 has gone out and 7/8 has in turn vanished in favor of 5/8—1/2—3/8—4—(?) Instead of going up, she's falling fast. Before the market closes the price may rebound to $1.55. Somebody will make a "clean-up" to-day and many speculators will disappear; for margins are being wiped out every minute.
To the Gallery it is a pandemonium of noise, unintelligible in the volume of it that beats against the void of the high chamber. Only one shrill voice flings up out of the roar:
"Sell fifty Oc, sev'-eights!" He offers 50,000 bushels of wheat for October delivery at $1.43 7/8 per bushel. It's that fellow down there with the blazing red tie half way up his collar. He hits out with both hands at the air as he yells. A surge of buyers overwhelms him. They scribble notes upon their sales cards and go at it again.
Down there in the mêlée those men are thinking fast. With every flash of the clock the situation changes for many of them. Some pause, watching, listening; others who have been quiet till now suddenly break in with a bellow, seemingly on the point of punching the noses of the men with whom they are doing business. Lightning calculation; instantaneous decisions! "Use your discretion" many of them have been cautioned by their firms and they are using it. A moment's hesitation may cost a thousand dollars. Trading in the Pit is no child's play; rather is it a severe strain even upon those who know every trick, every firm and the character of its dealings, every trader and his individuality, his particular methods—who know every sign and its meaning, who can read the coming shout by the first movement of the lips. And always, in and out, are darting the telegraph messenger boys with yellow slips that cause upheavals.
"Why don't they take their time and do their trading more quietly and systematically?" ventures Friend Wife up in the gallery.
"And lose a cent a bushel while they're turning around, eh?" laughs Friend Husband. "On a hundred thousand bushels that'd only be a thousand dollars. Of course that's mere car-fare!"
The dear old lady from the quiet eddies of Shelterville is shaking her head in disapprobation and communing with herself upon the iniquities of gambling.
"My, oh my! What won't men do for money! Jt-jt! Just look at 'em! Fightin' like that for money they ain't earnt! An' that nice lookin' young feller with the intelligent gold specs!—Dear me, it's enough to make a body sad!"