"We're wasting valuable time," Bascom protested as he nodded affirmation.
"Not if we're busted as completely as you've agreed we are," smiled Francis. "Being thoroughly busted, time, sales, purchases, nothing can be of any value to us. Values have ceased, don't you see."
"Go on, what is it?" Bascom said, with the momentarily assumed patience of abject despair. "I'm busted higher than a kite now, and, as you say, they can't bust me any higher."
"Now you get the idea!" Francis jubilated. "You're a member of the Exchange. Then go ahead, sell or buy, do anything your and my merry hearts decide. We can't lose. Anything from zero always leaves zero. We've shot all we've got, and more. Let's shoot what we haven't got."
Bascom still struggled feebly to protest, but Francis beat him down with a final:
"Remember, anything from zero leaves zero."
And for the next hour, as in a nightmare, no longer a free agent, Bascom yielded to Francis' will in the maddest stock adventure of his life.
"Oh, well," Francis laughed at half-past eleven, "we might as well quit now. But remember, we're no worse off than we were an hour ago. We were zero then. We're zero now. You can hang up the auctioneer's flag any time now."
Bascom, heavily and wearily taking down the receiver, was about to transmit the orders that would stop the battle by acknowledgment of unconditional defeat, when the door opened and through it came the familiar ring of a pirate stave that made Francis flash his hand out in peremptory stoppage of his broker's arm.
"Stop!" Francis cried. "Listen!"