The Pit

ne by, and the third winter since the cere

lower sagged the price; now it was seventy-five, now seventy-two. From all parts of the country in solid, waveless tides wheat-the mass of it incessantly crushing down the price-came rolling in upon Chicago and the Board of Trade Pit. All over the world the farmers saw season after season of good crops. They were good in the Argentine Republic, and on the Russian steppes.

of the farmer worked upward through the cogs and wheels of the whole great machine of business. It was as though a lubricant had dried up. The cogs and wheels worked slowly and with dislocations. Things were a little out of joint. Wall Street stocks were down. In a word, "times were bad." Thus for three years. It became a proverb on the Chicago Board of Trade that the quickest way to make money was to sell wheat short. One could with almost absolute certainty be sure of buying cheaper

ce more been successful. Two months after this raid he and Gretry planned still another coup, a deal of greater magnitude than any they had previously hazarded. Lau

daring than when under stress of the most merciless attack. On this occasion, when the "other side" resorted to the usual tactics to drive him from the Pit, he led on his enemies to make one single false step. Instantly-di

was not till long afterward that Laura knew ho

of the Chicago Board of Trade at sixty-four, the July option at sixty-five, the September at sixty-six and an eighth. During February of the same year Jadwin h

Jadwin was unusually thoughtful. His short wheat gave him no concern. He was now so rich that a mere

urse of the winter, a change had quietly, gradually come about, that it was even then operating. The conditions that had prevailed so consistently for three years

, or the times' healthful activities were instantly reflected, Jadwin sensed a more rapid, an easier, more untroubled run of life blood. All through the Body of Things, money, the vital fluid, seemed to be flowing more easily. People seemed richer, the banks were lending more, securities seemed stable, solid. In New York, stocks were bo

the financia

been generous, and of excellent quality, was now to prove-it seemed quite possible-scant and of poor condition. He began to watch the weather, and t

unties. In Illinois, from Quincy and Waterloo in the west, and from Ridgway in the south, reports came steadily to hand of freezing weather and bitter winds. All through the lower portions of the State the snowfall during the winter had not been heavy enough to protect the seeded grain. But the Ohio cro

nation? County seat after county seat began to send in its reports. All over the State the grip of winter held firm even yet. The wheat had been battered by

of Trade might keep the price inert even in face of the news of short yields. As a matter of fact, the more important and stronger Bear traders were already piping their usual strain. Prices were bound to decline, the thr

far below any known for ten years past. On March tenth the same bulletin had shown a moderate supply in far

et the effect of a poor American harvest. They pointed out the fact that the Government report on condition was brought up o

invited Gretry and his wife to dine at the new house on North Avenue; and after dinner, leaving Mrs. G

n did not begin to play at once. Jadwin had asked the questio

y of a beginning, "what do you

halked his c

but the market will go off again. I said wheat would go to si

observed Jadwin. "Sam, we're going to have

tered into a long argument t

nced. All at once he laid the

d, "touched bottom all along the line.

sitting on the edge of the table, "wheat will go to sixty." He indi

hes in front of a corner pocket. He called the shot

this pocket wheat will-n

nd looked at him quickly. But he did not speak. Jadwin sat down on one of the straight-ba

ee years. We've been hammering wheat down and down and down, till we've got it below the cost of production; and now she won't go any further with all the hammering in the world. The oth

ket right up to the beginning o

ook here, Sam, I'm short of May five hundred thousand bushels, and to-morrow mo

broker. "Hold on another month, an

This Bear campaign of ours has com

roker. "Great heavens, you mustn't get out of

ing to get

id Gretry, "you don'

was in it. I'm not only going to cover my May shorts and get out of that trade, but"-Jadwin leaned forward and struck his hand upon his knee-"but I'm going to buy. I'm going to buy September wheat, and I'm going to buy it to-morrow, five hundred th

n, or little Sweeny, or all that lot would give you one little bit of a chance for your life if they got a grip on you. Cover your shorts if you want to, but, for God's sake, don't begin to buy in the same breath. You wait a while. If this ma

into a game where the only ones who can possibly win are the ones who take big chances, and then they try to play the thing cautiously. If I wait a while till the market turns up and everybody is b

Gretry spun a ball between

, "well-I don't know, J.-you are eith

uel. I'm just using a little co

ssed if

e you six balls and beat you in"-he looked a

a dol

, Sam, and y

ur later J

ur cigar. That's one bargain I made with Laura before w

, as the two stepped into the elevator. "Ho

ct. I was having a look around, and I came out into a little kind of smoking-room or

he broker stepped out into the main hallway. From the

our art gallery and the organ. Last time you were

he heavy, sombre curtains, Jadwin pressed a couple of electric buttons,

opped with a vast airy dome of coloured glass. Here and there about the room were glass cabinets full of bibelots, ivory statuettes, old snuff boxes, fans

ood a great organ, large enough for a cathedral, and giving to view, in

mething like," ex

ll you. We bought most of 'em while we were abroad, year before last. Laura says this is the best

nday-school superintendents to see this now. This is what

in did n

e in just that way

though," Gretry hastened to

cuirassier; in this case a trumpeter, one arm high in the air, the hand clutching the trumpet, the horse, foam-flecked, a

t truck before going into action.... Queer way these artists work," he went on, peering close to the canvas. "Look at it close up and it's just a lot of little daubs, but you get off a di

is the real thing, J. I suppose, now, it

e, up there in Ottawa County, Michigan, on my old dad's farm, when I used to have to get up before day-break to tend the stock, and my sister and I used to run out quick into the stable and stand in the warm cow fodder in the stalls to warm our bare feet..

. Oh, I hav

ver had a good time when she was alive. Work, work, work; morning, noon, and night. I'd like to have made it up to her.

try, "you got a good

usting his hands suddenly into his pockets. Part

he exclaimed, then turned away again. "

, put his chin in the air, shutt

he answered. "

" said Jadwin briskly. "Here's

o the other si

those attachment things

inventions. Jadwin sat down before it, pulled out a stop or two, and placed his feet on the pedals. A vast preliminary roaring breath soughed through the pipes, with a vibratory rush of powe

y, his voice raised to make h

ion that, if mechanical, was yet effective. Jadwin, his eyes now on the stops, now on the sliding strip of paper, pl

dame Calve ... electric motor ..

e repeated, and then ran down to a series of chords and bars that prepared for and prefigured some great effect close at hand. There was a short pau

caught by a movement on the other side of the room, he turned about to

e. Her black hair was piled high upon her head, a single American Beauty rose nodded against her bare shoulder. She was even yet slim and very tall, her face pale with th

l, rather pretty blonde woman, a little angular, a little faded. She was garr

s perhaps not quite so delicate, so fine, so virginal, so charmingly angular and boyish. There was infinitely more of the woman in it; and perhaps because of this she looked more like Laura than at any time of her life before. But even yet her express

ura, "so we came in. I wanted

h a growth as a transformation. She was no longer the same half-formed, impulsive girl who had found a delight in the addresses of her three lovers, and who had sat on the floor in the old home on State Street and allowed Landry Court to

e she had walked in darkness, a darkness that she fancied was day; walked perversely, carelessly, and with a frivolity that was almost wicked. Then, suddenly, she had seen a great light. Love had e

old-rose silk, and that Curtis had said it was the prettiest he had ever seen. It was an hour before midnight, and the lake was so still as to appear veritably solid. The moon was reflected upon the surface with never a ripple to blur its image. The sky was grey with starlight, and only a vague bar of black between the star shimmer and the pale shield of the water marked the shore line. Never since that night could she hear th

around her shoulders, Laura had sat near her husband, who had placed

she had caught him about the neck and drawn his face down to hers, and her he

u-love you

ot been able to find herself. Her affection for her husband came and went capriciously. There were moments when she believed herself to be really unhappy. Then, all at once, she seemed to awake. Not the ceremony at St. James' Church, but that awakening had been

of her husband, great wealth, extraordinary beauty, perfect health, an untroubled mind, friends, position-everything. God had been good to her

unending pageant; and their happiness became for them some marvellous, bewildering thing, dazzling,

oubles-so she made herself believe-and had found too many occasions to ridicule Page's intenseness and queer little solemnities. True she had given her a good home, good clothes, and a good education, but she should have given more-more than mere duty-gifts. She should have been more of a companion to the little girl, more of a

ely better than, Jadwin her lover, that Laura sometimes found herself looking back with a kind of retrospective apprehension on the old days and the time when she was simply Miss Dearborn. How little she had known him after all! And how, in the face of this ignorance, this innocence, this absence of any insight into his real character,

eep-sake-or even a bunch of flowers-when he returned in the evening. The anniversaries-Christmas, their wedding day, her birthday-he always observed with great ecla

mpeccable hero in her eyes. He was tremendously human. He had his faults, his certai

e of conduct not altogether advisable at the moment, and the ingenuity of the excuses by which he justified himself were monumen

herished objects and occupations, that he indulged extravagantly and to t

onkey-wrench, or paint brush in his hand-tinkering and pottering about the boat, over and over again. Wealthy as he was, he could have maintained an entire crew on board whose whole duty should have been to screw, and scrub, and scour. But Jadwin would have none of it. "Costs too much," he would declare, with profound gravity. He had the self-made American's handiness with implements and paint brushes, and he would, at high noon and under a murderous sun, make the trip from the house to the dock where

e would cavil on a half-dollar's overcharge; he would put himself to downright inconvenience to save the useless expenditur

the heat of the afternoon. Her husband improved these occasions when he was deprived of her society, to indulge in his pastime. Never a morning so forbidding that

ended with no less solicitude. MacKenny (who sometimes acted as guide and oarsman) and her husband exhausted their ingenuity to make her comfortable. They held anxious debates: "Do you think she'll like that?" "Wouldn't this make it easier for her?" "Is that the way she liked it last time?" Jadwin himself arranged the cushions, spread th

enjoy it; and I just don't. I'm sorry, I want to share every pleasure with you, but I don't like to fish, and

nt-had been a disappointment to her. The museums, art galleries, and cathedrals were not of the least interest to Jadwin, and though he foll

d by the anticipation of her pleasure in settling in the new home. This had not been possible immediately after their marriage. For nearly two years the great place had been given over to c

that side the most delightful outlooks were obtainable-green woods, open lawns, the parade ground, the Lincoln monument, dells, bushes, smooth drives, flower beds, and fountains. From the great bay window of Laura's own sitting-room she could see far out over Lake Michigan, and watch the procession of great lake steamers, from

ervatory, in which she took the keenest delight, was a wonderful affair-a vast bubble-like structure of green panes, whence, winter and

burdened with the responsibility of selection and planning. Fortunately, however, the decorators were men of taste. There was nothing to offend, and much to delight in the results they obtained in the dining-room, breakfast-room, parlors, drawing-rooms, and suites of bedrooms. But Laura, though the

bedroom, and more especially that apartment from whose bay windows she looked out upon the Lake, and which,

forgetting that this now was part of the housekeeper's duties. For months she persisted in "doing her room" after breakfast, just as she had been taught to do in the old days when she was a little girl at Barrington. She was afraid of the elevator,

organ in the art gallery; and these alone more than

out of doors, except to take her carriage, her coupe, her phaeton, or her dog-cart. Best of all she loved her saddle horses. She had learned to ride, and th

ct her in the intricacies of stops and of pedals, and in the difficulties of the "echo" organ, "great" organ, "choir," and "swell." So soon as she had mastered these, Laura entered upon a new world of delight. Her taste in music was as yet a little im

nt. She revelled in these great musical "effects" upon her organ, the grandiose easily appealed to her, while as for herself, the role of the "gran

t life-and the massive luxury with which she was now surrounded. Without knowing it, she began to act the part of a great lady-and she acted it well. She assumed the existence of her numerous servants as she assumed the fact of the trees in the park; she gave herself into the hands of her maid

er servants would impose on her, would run over her, and in

. He never descended to familiarity with them, and, as a matter of fact, ignored them to such an extent that he forgot or confused their names. But where Laura was obeyed wit

bloom from the conservatory each morning. The flower was to be placed at Jadwin's plate, and it was quite the event of the day for the old fellow when the master appeared on the front steps with the flower in his coat. But a feud promptly developed over this matter between the gardener and the maid who took the butler's place at breakfast every

man at the conclusion of the wh

bridled and stammered as thou

fool,'" observed Laura, "he would

gy behind Nip and Tuck. By nine Laura's own saddle horse was brought to the carriage porch, and until eleven she rode in the park. At twelve she lunched with Page, and in the afternoon-in the "upstairs sitting-room" read her Browning or her Meredith, the latter one of her newest discoveries, till three or four. Sometimes after that she went out in her carriage. If it was to "shop" she

wing-room, but Laura and Jadwin shut themselves in the library, a lofty panelled room-a place of deep leather chairs, tall bookcases, etchings, a

n over and begun again from another starting-point. Left to himself, his wife sorrowfully admitted that he would have gravitated to the "Mysterious Island" and "Michael Strogoff," or even to "Mr. Potter

d. But Pinkerton for long remained for him a

ieve that any art that don't make the world better and ha

found his abiding

ad the "get there" to him. "Why," he would say, "I know fifty boys just like him down there in La Salle Street." Lapham he loved as a brother. Never a point in the development of h

t what I would have done if I had been in his place. Come, this chap knows what he's

age a "coming-out" dance, and nearly every Sunday the Cresslers came to dinner. But Aunt Wess' could, at first, rarely be induced to pay th

t run up any bills. I don't know what your dear father would say to it all, no, I don't." And she would s

ee your dear husband's face when he gets his gas bill. And a dressma

s upon a larger scale, and every time he won. He was a Bear always, and on those rare occasions when he referred to his ventures in Laura's hearing, it was invariably to say that prices were goi

remained in the art gallery; and as they were return

he said, "you might tell me at what figu

ed Jadwin. "I want to g

erminable story of how Isabel had all but asphyxiated herself the night before, a servant announced Landry

usiness, and was starving his soul. He should read more, she told him, and she had said that if

conversation with the older people in the dr

ed for the modern novel, and spoke of the "newest book." But Page never read new books; she was not interested, and their talk, unable to establish itself upon a common ground, halted, and was in a fair way to end, until at last, and by insensible deg

y had

ves when I was fifteen, and I find I am the same now that I am a man grown. When I do a thing, I want to do it better than any one else. From the very first I have a

answered. "Yes,

on. You are at your best when you are with j

t," she e

y one is talking and shouting around me, or to me, even, my mind works at its best.

," she assented.

sympathetic woman is as much of a stimulus as a lot of

en man and woman that is the great thing-companionship. Love," she added, abruptly, and the

s of his life

n's whole

believe

it might be so, but all depends upon the man and woman. Love," he add

ve," said Page. "Yes, lo

been in lo

ever been

s in love," he said, w

hought I was," she

n early marriages

he can give his wife a good home, and good clothes and-a

course you w

ition. I am morose and t

tested wit

I have long, brooding

ght, sometimes-when I wake up. Then I'm all down i

sm? I do. They say Carlyle

believe in pessimism and love at the same time. Woul

es, te

's silence, and th

would only love once, but love for

grew wide. S

tence-whole existence.' Ye

did right in going away af

a beautiful poem? Wasn't he noble? Wasn'

t into that house, and I would have made things hum. I'd

thinking of himself. You don't know the me

mine. Think I'd give up the

loved the oth

d find out how she felt abo

h, if I were in Enoch Arden's place, and my husband thought I was dead, and I knew he was happy with another woman, it would jus

convent. If I loved a woman, I wouldn't let an

ination, haven't you?" s

shoulders a little

w, but I'd try pretty hard to

ristic in men," she observed

man womanly," he answered. "Don'

ter

call womanly-the womanlie

," she protested,

read. It's been inspiring to me. I want you should know that. Yes, sir,

hat's what you mean,"

e time. I'll get that 'Stones of Venice' I've heard you speak of, and I'll sit up n

lashed when you said it. I believe if you once made up your mind to

e things hum, I gu

t a little late, to find Jadwin already finished and deep in the pages of t

dwin was in his frock coat, which later he would wear to church. The famous gardenia was in his lapel. He was freshly shaven, and his fine cigar mad

tiful sister Laura, with her splendid, overshadowing coiffure, her pale, clear skin, her slender figure; Jadwin, the large, solid man of affairs, with his fine cigar, his gardenia, his well-groomed air. And then the little accessories that meant so much-the smell of violets, of good tobacco, of fragr

one of the carriage horses. While Page addressed herself to her fruit and coffee, Jadwin put down his paper, and, hi

out and tell Jarvis to try it on the buggy team." He pushed ope

it, then suddenly laid it down and tu

u think I ought to marry-

" echoe

e. "Laura-don't talk

ou marry when the time comes? Girls as young

swering Page put

you think I

t been out of the house for three days, and I never see you without your note-books and text

age. "I hate them. Laura,

tly, and never to be bold or conspicuous-and to love one's home and to take care of it, and to love and

ly is better than being w

hurry through your breakfast. If we are going to church this Easter, we wa

t night, and-oh, I don't know, he's so silly. But he said-well, he said this-well, I said that I understood how he felt about certain things, about 'getting on,' and bein

Laura, liftin

ack of her head, and moved closer to Laura, her eyes on the floor. "Laura-what do you

. "If he said that he meant it-meant

g machine, he says, and he wants to cultivate his mind and understand art and literature and that. And he wants me to help him, and I said I would. So if yo

Jadwins, taking Page with them, went up to Geneva Lake for the

down to the city but two days a week, but soon this was increased to alternate days. Gretry was a frequent visitor at the country house, and

s of you every day, and I had so looked forward to th

l as though I ought to be on the spot just for now. I can't get it ou

. He says you can manage your Board of Trade business from out here just as well, and that you on

ge and coax to get his friend to so much as notice the swirl of the great maelstrom in the Board of Trade Building. But

ad gone up from sixty to sixty-six cents, and at a small profit Jadwin had sold some two hundred and fifty thousand bushels. Then had come the hot weather at the end of May. On the floor of the Board of Trade the Pit tra

on there were complaints of weevils and chinch bugs. Later on other deluges had discoloured and damaged the winter crop. Jadwin was now, by v

hand yet. Look out for a heavy French crop. We'll get reports on it soo

aid. "We're only just loading her-

rs, the United States crop was to be small and poor. The yield was moderate. Only part of it could be graded as "contr

win through all the coming months. The French wheat crop was announced as poor. In Germany the

ng evening's trip around the lake, aboard the "Thetis." They were alone. MacKenny was at the wheel, and,

month, but this French and German news has coloured the cat different. I've been figuring that I would

lity, then," said the broker. "I

apers that Crookes could buy up any time he wants to. I want you to get me some good, reliable correspondents in Europe; smart, bright fellow

thought

od man in Liverpool-Traynard is his name-and there's two or three in Paris we coul

in handlers were not only buying freely, but were contracting for future delivery. In August came the first d

overcrowded-commencing to show uneasiness as to its supply of food for the winter; and with but a moderate crop in America t

-five cents. Jadwin sold out his September wheat at this figure, and then i

mething was preparing. Something indefinite and huge. He guessed it, felt it, knew it. On all sides of him he felt a quickening movement. Le

e, Jadwin plunged in. Every week the swirl of the Pit increased in speed, every week the demands of Europe for American wheat grew more frequent; and at the end of the month the p

ure was reached Jadwin bought

no longer a