Intrigued by the excitement, he agreed with the broker who had brought him in, to accept the experience of making a flutter in grain.
Immediately there were yells, "What is he, Bull or Bear?" and the Prince, thoroughly perplexed, turned to the broker and asked what type of financial mammal he might be.
He became a Bull and bought.
He did not endeavour to corner wheat in the manner of the heroes of the stories, for wheat was controlled; he bought, instead, fifty thousand bushels of oats. A fair deal, and he told those about him with a smile that he was going to make several thousand dollars out of Winnipeg in a very few moments.
An onlooker pointed to the blackboard, and cried:
"What about that? Oats are falling."
But the broker was a wise man. He had avoided a royal "crash." He had already sold at the same price, 83 1/2, and the Prince had accomplished what is called a "cross trade." That is he had squared the deal and only lost his commission.
While he stood in that frantic pit of whirling voices something of the vast transactions of the Grain Exchange was explained to him. It is the biggest centre for the receipt and sale of wheat directly off the land in the world. It handles grain by the million bushels. In the course of a day, so swift and thorough are its transactions, it can manipulate deals aggregating anything up to 150,000,000 bushels.
When these details had been put before him, the gong was again struck, and silence came magically.
Unseen by most in that pack of men on the steps the Prince was heard to say that he had come to the conclusion that to master the intricacies of the Exchange was a science rather beyond his grasp just then. He hoped that his trip westward would give him a more intimate knowledge of the facts about grain, and when he came back, as he hoped he would, he might have it in him to do something better than a "cross trade."