The younger man was about to remonstrate, but Montague stopped him, “I will put up the fifty thousand I have earned,” he said. “I dare not risk any more.”
Oliver shrugged his shoulders. “As you please,” he said. “You may never have another such chance in your life.”
He dropped the subject, or at least he probably tried to. Within a few minutes, however, he was back at it again, with the result that by the time they reached the banking-district, Montague had agreed to draw sixty thousand.
They stopped at his bank. “It isn’t open yet,—” said Oliver, “but the paying teller will oblige you. Tell him you want it before the Exchange opens.”
Montague went in and got his money, in six new, crisp, ten-thousand-dollar bills. He buttoned them up in his inmost pocket, wondering a little, incidentally, at the magnificence of the place, and at the swift routine manner in which the clerk took in and paid out such sums as this. Then they drove to Oliver’s bank, and he drew a hundred and twenty thousand; and then he paid off the cab, and they strolled down Broadway into Wall Street. It lacked a quarter of an hour of the time of the opening of the Exchange; and a stream of prosperous-looking men were pouring in from all the cars and ferries to their offices.
“Where are your brokers?” Montague inquired.
“I don’t have any brokers—at least not for a matter such as this,” said Oliver. And he stopped in front of one of the big buildings. “In there,” he said, “are the offices of Hammond and Streeter—second floor to your left. Go there and ask for a member of the firm, and introduce yourself under an assumed name—”
“What!” gasped Montague.
“Of course, man—you would not dream of giving your own name! What difference will that make?”
“I never thought of doing such a thing,” said the other.