He decided to risk glancing into the room.
At some risk of losing his hold he balanced himself in order to accomplish his wish.
He saw a room, unclean and unwholesome. The men seemed to be of the discarded of the street, the diseased and maimed of the financial district; here and there was a younger, smarter type, the kind that makes the gangster, the pickpocket and worse. He also saw Tom sitting quietly yet alert. At his elbow was a young man, somewhat older than Tom. On the wall facing the window was a great blackboard, and as the ticker spelled out its information, and the slovenly dressed clerk gave it voice, a second clerk chalked away without cessation.
Beyond this clerk’s announcements everything was quiet. Bill felt himself slipping, so he silently swung back to his former position. The light of understanding was in his eyes.
“By Jove, it’s a bucket shop!”
Now a bucket shop is where people buy and sell stock on less margin or in smaller quantity than is accepted on the curb on Broad Street or on the Stock Exchange. These establishments, too, are fast disappearing, though as is always possible in New York, an exception—as in all directions of semi-organized crime—manages to keep from the sharp talons of the law for a longer period of time.
The bucket shops were where messenger boys and clerks gamboled with Dame Fortune. Sooner or later they lost—lost not only every cent to their names, but much of their self-respect and honesty. It was also the place for the men who had gone down to defeat in the great battle fought bitterly every minute of the day in the great financial arena. These men were unfit for everything else, so they turned to the bucket shops as a drowning man grasps at a straw. But we have digressed enough—though this was really necessary—and let us continue with the narrative.
Bill did not know what to make of it all.
Surely Tom Jukes had little need to play for stakes. His father was sufficiently wealthy and knew the great money game, and its pitfalls, not to have acquainted his son with them. The more Bill thought, the more puzzled he became.
Suddenly he heard Tom shout: