Katherine obeyed, her courage returning as she found herself thus strangely installed within the fortress she feared to attack. She stumbled occasionally, and was sharply set upon her feet, in the matter of figures, by her eager hearer. At last she came to Turkish six per cents.
"Eighty-seven to eighty-eight and a quarter."
"Ha!" muttered the old man, "that's an advance! good! nothing to be done there yet. Now read the railway stocks."
Katherine obeyed. When she came to "Florida and Teche debentures, sixty-two and a half to sixty-five and three-fourths," she was startled by a sort of shrill shout. "Ay! that's a rise! Some rigging design there! I must write—I must. Where, where has that——harridan hid my glasses? Why, it is almost twelve o'clock! the boy will be here for the paper immediately. And the post! the post! I must catch the post. Can you write?"
"Oh yes! Shall I write for you?"
"You shall! you shall! here's paper"—rising and opening an ancient blotting-book, its covers all scribbled over with tiny figures, the result of much calculating, he hastily set forth writing materials, his lean, claw-like, dirty hands trembling with eagerness. "Hear, hear, write fast."
Katherine, growing a little clearer, and amazed at her own increasing self-possession, drew off her gloves, and taking the rusty pen offered her, wrote at his dictation:
"To Messrs. Rogers & Stokes, Corbett Court, E. C.:
"Gentlemen,—Sell all my Florida shares if possible to-day, even if they decline a quarter.
"I am yours faithfully—"