The boy was too much stunned at the prospect to reply.
CHAPTER XIII.
WHO HOLDS THE ACE?
Rats, they say, will leave a sinking ship.
Perhaps it would hardly be fair to compare the solid brokerage firm of Jarboe, Willicutt & Co. with the rodents in question, but Tennyson Jarboe, after his interview with Vance Thornton and a careful study of Mr. Whitemore’s condition from the latest reports in the evening papers, decided, in consultation with his partners, that Jared Whitemore was as good as done for, both physically and financially.
With five million bushels of corn ready to be shipped to Chicago at their nod, it was reasonable to expect that the Jarrett, Palmer & Carrington clique would jump into the pit the next morning and, with little opposition to fear, hammer the market to pieces.
In the ensuing panic corn would tumble like the famous Humpty Dumpty of fairy fiction, and it therefore behooved Jarboe, Willicutt & Co., with the pointer they had got from Vance, to sell a million or so bushels short for their own private account.
It would be perfectly fair, since Mr. Whitemore’s boyish representative could do nothing toward stemming the current without money.
So when Vance Thornton reached Mr. Whitemore’s office on the following morning he found a letter addressed to himself and signed by Mr. Jarboe, in which that gentleman expressed his regret that the firm saw no way of saving their old customer from the expected crash unless something tangible in the way of money was forthcoming, and as this seemed to be out of the question, Jarboe, Willicutt & Co. could hardly be expected to execute any further commissions for Mr. Whitemore.
“All right,” exclaimed Vance, coolly; “you have deserted the ship just a moment too soon for your own good, Mr. Jarboe. I’m only a boy, it is true, but I’m not taking off my hat to you after that.”