The effect upon Barry Conant was different from that of Bob’s last bid on the day when Beulah Sands’s hopes went skyward in dust.  It did not rouse him to the wild, furious desire for the onslaught that he showed then, but seemed to quicken his alert, prolific mind to exercise all its cunning.  I think that in that one moment Barry Conant recalled his suspicions of the day before, when he had wondered what Bob’s presence in the crowd meant, and that he saw again the picture of Bob on the day when he himself had ditched Bob’s treasure-train.  He hesitated for just the fraction of a second, while he waved with lightning-like rapidity a set of finger signals to his lieutenants.  Then he squared himself for the encounter. “25 for 5,000,” Cold, cold as the voice of a condemning judge rang Bob’s “Sold.” “25 for 5,000.”  “Sold.” “25 for 5,000.”  “Sold.”  Their eyes were fixed upon each other, in Barry’s a defiant glare, in Bob’s mingled pity and contempt.  The rest of the brokers hushed their own bids and offers until it could have truthfully been said that the floor of the Stock Exchange was quiet, an almost unheard-of thing in like circumstances.  Again Barry Conant’s voice, “25 for 5,000.”  “Sold.” “25 for 5,000.”  “Sold.”  Barry Conant had met his master.  Whether it was that for the first time in all his wonderful career he realised that the “System” was to meet its Nemesis, or what the cause, none could tell, perhaps not even Barry Conant himself, but some emotion caused his olive face for an instant to turn pale, and gave his voice a tell-tale quiver.  Once more pealed forth “25 for 5,000.”  That Bob saw the pallor, that he caught the quiver, was evident to all, for the instant his “Sold” rang out, he followed it with “5,000 at 24, 23, 22, 20.”  Neither Barry Conant nor any of his lieutenants got in a “Take it”; although whether they wanted to or not was an open question until Bob allowed his voice to dwell just a pendulum swing of time on the 20.  It was as if he were tantalising them into sticking by their guns.  By the time he paused, Barry Conant’s nerve was back, for his piercing “Take it” had linked to it “20 for any part of 10,000.”  The bid was yet on his lips when Bob’s deep voice rang out “Sold.”  “Any part of 25,000 at 19, 18, 15, 10.”  Hell was now loose.  Back and forth, up against the rail, around the room and back and around again, the crowd surged for fifteen of the wildest, craziest minutes in the history of the New York Stock Exchange, a history replete with records of wild and crazy scenes.

At last from sheer exhaustion there came a ten minutes’ lull, which was used in comparing trades.  At the beginning of the respite Sugar was selling at 155, for in that quarter-hour of madness it had broken from 210 to 155, but when the ten minutes had elapsed, the stock had worked back to 167.  Barry Conant had again taken the centre of the crowd after hastily scanning the brief notes handed him by messenger-boys and giving orders to his lieutenants.  He had