"I'll be drunker before the morning," the clerk remarked, with a feeble laugh. "I wish I had Dresser here; I'd like to pound him once."
That desire was repeated in the looks of many men, who were still glowering at the afternoon's quotations. Carson, the idol of the new "promotions," seemed to be the man most in demand for pounding. Einstein was explaining to a savage customer why he had advised him to buy "Rag."
"I got it over the telephone this morning from a man very close to Carson that Rag was the thing, the peach of the whole lot. He said it was slated to cross Biscuit to-day."
The man growled and ground a cigar stub into the floor.
"Come, we'll have a drink," a white-faced young fellow called out to an old man, an acquaintance of the hour. "Somebody's got my money!" The two passed out arm in arm.
Webber had his drink, and then another. Then he leaned back in the embrasure of the bar-room window and looked at Sommers.
"I guess it's the lake this time. I can't go back to her and tell her it's all up."
Sommers watched the man closely, trying to determine how far the disease had gone. Webber's vain, rather weak face was disguised with a beard, which made him look older than he was, and the arm that rested on the table trembled nervously from the flaccid fingers to the shoulder-blades.
"They've put up some trick between them," Webber continued, in a grumbling tone. "Carson or Porter is making something by selling Rag. They'd ought to be in the penitentiary."
"What rot!" Sommers remarked deliberately. "They've beaten you at your game, and they will every time, because they have more nerve than you, and because they know more. There's no use in damning them. You'd do the same thing if you knew when to do it."