"Not too much. You can't expect a man to turn out discoveries to order, I'm working almost night and day now. If the thing can be solved, I'll solve it."
Chambers glowed. “Keep up the good work. But I wanted to talk to you about something else. You heard, I suppose, that I lost a barrel of money on the Ranthoor exchange."
Craven smiled, a sardonic twisting of his lips. “I heard something about it."
"I thought you had,” said Chambers sourly. “If not, you would have been the only one who hadn't heard how Ben Wrail took Chambers for a ride."
"He really took you then,” commented Craven. “I thought maybe it was just one of those stories."
"He took me, but that's not what's worrying me. I want to know how he did it. No man, not even the most astute student of the market, could have foretold the trend of the market the way he did. And Wrail isn't the most astute. It isn't natural when a man who has always played the safe side suddenly turns the market upside down. Even less natural when he never makes a mistake."
"Well,” demanded Craven, “what do you want me to do about it? I'm a scientist. I've never owned a share of stock in my life."
"There's an angle to it that might interest you,” said Chambers smoothly, leaning back, puffing at the cigar. “Wrail is a close friend of Manning. And Wrail himself didn't have the money it took to swing those deals. Somebody furnished that money."
"Manning?” asked Craven.
"What do you think?"