The clang of the gong recalled me from the reverie that had shut out the details of the scene before me.
"There! Did you hear that?" groaned Wall-bridge. "Omega closes at two thousand six hundred and Decker takes every trick. Oh, why didn't you have me on the floor out there? By the great horn spoon, I'd 'a' had every share of that stock, and wouldn't 'a' paid more than half as much for it, neither."
I sighed and turned, sick at heart, to meet the King of the Street as he shouldered his way from the floor.
There was not a trace of his misfortune to be read in his face. But Decker, the victor, moved away like a man oppressed, pale, staggering, half-fainting, as though the nervous strain had brought him to the edge of collapse.
Doddridge Knapp made his way to the doors and signed me to follow him, but spoke no word until we stood beside the columns that guard the entrance.
The rain fell in a drizzle, but anxious crowds lined the streets, dodged into doorways for shelter, or boldly moved across the walks and the cobbled roadway under the protection of bobbing umbrellas. The news of the unprecedented jump in Omega in which the price had doubled thrice in a few minutes, had flown from mouth to mouth, and excitement was at fever heat.
"That was warm work," said Doddridge Knapp after a moment's halt.
"I was very sorry to have it turn out so," I said.
"I wasn't," he growled good-humoredly. "I thought it was rather neatly done."
"Oh, I forgot that I hadn't seen you," he continued. "And like enough I shouldn't have told you if I had. The truth is, I found a block of four thousand shares on Saturday night, and made a combination with them."
"But you were buying shares this morning."
"A mere optical illusion, Wilton. I was in fact a seller, for I had shares to spare."
"I don't wonder you were taken in, my boy. Decker was fooled to the tune of about a million dollars this morning. I thought it was rather neat for a clean-up."
I thought so, too, and the King of the Street smiled at my exclamations over his cleverness. But my congratulations were cut short as a small dark man pressed his way to the corner where we stood, and whispered in Doddridge Knapp's ear.
"Was he sure?" asked the King of the Street.