"Lord! Lord!" he reiterated. "The market's gone to smash and Tampico Pet along with it. How she slumped! Who'd have dreamed it!"
Francis, puffing steadily away at a cigarette and quite oblivious that it was unlighted, sat with Bascom in the latter's private office.
"It looks like a fire-sale," he vouchsafed.
"That won't last longer than this time to-morrow morning then you'll be sold out, and me with you," his broker simplified, with a swift glance at the clock.
It marked twelve, as Francis' swiftly automatic glance verified.
"Dump in the rest of Tampico Pet," he said wearily. "That ought to hold back until to-morrow."
"Then what to-morrow?" bis broker demanded, "with the bottom out and everybody including the office boys selling short."
Francis shrugged his shoulders. "You know I've mortgaged— the house, Dreamwold, and the Adirondack Camp to the limit."
"Have you any friends?"
"At such a time!" Francis countered bitterly.