Dugro grasped the doctor's hand and his deep voice rang above the roar:
"You're a mascot! You've broken the spell! For God's sake stay with us!"
Suddenly another cry came from the crowd at the ticker. The boy at the board sprang to the instrument with a single bound, his eyes blazing with excitement. His cry pierced every ear in the room with horror.
"The hell you say! Down a whole point! No!"
There was a moment's hush, every breath was held. Only the sharp click of the ticker broke the stillness.
"It was one point," groaned the Judge, "now, Gott, it's two—now it's three!"
The last words ended in a scream. Hell had broken loose at last.
The panic had come!
In ten minutes stocks tumbled five points and the doctor's last dollar was swept into space while the whole market plunged down, down, down into the abyss of ruin and despair.
Men no longer tried to conceal their emotion. Some wept, some cursed, some laughed; but the most pitiful sight of all was the man who could do neither, the man with white lips and the strange hunted expression in his eyes who was looking Death in the face for the first time.