"How did it hurt you? You pulled through all right, didn't you?"
Bojo came back thoughtfully, evading the question with another.
"And you?"
"Oh, better than I expected," said Marsh with a wry face. "I say, you're not—not cleaned out?"
Granning rose and with his heavy hand turned him around solicitously. "How about it, son?"
For hours Bojo had been debating his answer to this inevitable question without finding a solution. He drew his pocketbook and slowly extracted the check. "Gaze on that," he said solemnly.
Granning took it, stared at it, and passed it to Marsh, who looked up with an exclamation: "For God's sake, what does that mean?"
"It means," said Bojo slowly, "that I can tell you the truth now. We haven't lost a cent; on the contrary—" he paused and emphasized the next word—"we have made a killing. We means you, Fred, and myself."
"I don't get it," said Marsh, frowning.
"The real object of the pool was not to bear Pittsburgh & New Orleans, but to buy it. If I let you sell short, it was only to get others to sell short. To-morrow I'll settle up with you and Fred, every cent you've lost, plus—"