Cone sat down suddenly, as though his legs had turned to rubber.
"Now it will all start again," he said. "Sell out and pack up, pack up and clear out."
I crossed the office and put my hand on his shoulder. "Cheer up, Phil," I told him. "It won't be as bad as that. Graham and I will stick with you and that's true of Americans generally."
Cone shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. "Thanks, Winnie," he remarked. "You're a good fellow and a good friend. I've got something to say to you. You won't like it. I got worried yesterday when you started talking about Roosevelt maybe dying and I tipped the F.B.I. on what you said."
I laughed. "If the F.B.I. arrested every man in Wall Street who had ever talked about Roosevelt dying the jails wouldn't hold them. Don't worry, Phil. In your shoes I'd have done the same thing."
The phone rang again. It was the receptionist. "Mr. Harcourt is here to see you, Mr. Tompkins," she informed me. "Shall I ask him to wait?"
"Tell him I'll see him in a couple of minutes," I replied.
"This is it, boys," I told my partners. "It's the F.B.I. Now, the Market's going to drop. It will be a bear market in a big way, dignified as hell, and we're in ahead of the others. You two just carry on. Try to get a line on this guy Truman. Some of our Kansas City correspondents may have the dope. Phil, no hard feelings about this F.B.I. angle. They've been riding me for days on some crazy story Ranty Tolan started about me last week."
Wasson looked at me coldly. "If I thought that you had anything to do with this—" he began.
"Oh skip it!" I begged him. "You know me better."