"Pshaw! that wheat is worth a dollar any day. Buy five thousand at 72." But "puts" went to 68 cents at the close of the "privileges" and Pickett was glum.
Pickett was not a big plunger, only one of the ten million poor, hungry hangers on who watch the "ticker," listen to the reports made up for the masses by the master hand of manipulators, out of storm centers, visible supply, and world's consumption, and then gorge the bait.
Pickett was a winner one day on a pork deal and among other commodities in the "pit" which seemed a "good thing" was corn at 31 cents. He bought a small line and then forgot it in the strenuous circumstances which followed. At the close of the day's pork business he pocketed a big roll of bills and went out with the boys for a good time, only to fall down stairs and break his ankle. After three weeks' suffering he hobbled into the broker's office. Greetings were exchanged with the regulars, then he sought the cashier to draw the balance of his pork money. This account being settled the cashier said to him, "Pickett, what are you going to do with that corn?"
"What corn?"
"Why that corn you bought at 31 cents the day you broke your ankle."
"I did not buy any corn, did I?"
"Yes, you did, and there is to your credit $7,000."
"Seven thousand dollars!" shouted Pickett, and before any answer could be made he ordered the deal closed, then went out and bought a fast "hoss," a pair of checked trousers, a silk hat, and hunted up the girl who immediately became Mrs. Pickett as soon as the necessary formalities could be arranged. But the seven thousand dollars did not last long and the support of a wife was more than Pickett bargained for. Matters grew very serious and Mrs. Pickett found she had either to go to work in some clerkship capacity, or start a boarding house or peanut and candy store near some school house. She chose the boarding house, which soon merged into a swell private hotel, and it was in the "Addington" that Chiquita saw a phase of life so common to the man of the world and the bachelor girl charging full tilt into the twentieth century.
"Mrs. Pickett, please tell me a little of yourself, that I may understand why the white sister has no husband to care for her as other white sisters have."
It was about three months after Chiquita had taken up her residence at the "Addington." The two were on one of the porches which overlook the lake on the north shore in a most beautiful location near Sheridan drive.