Whatever motive impelled Robert H. Norcross to his mysterious operations in L.D. and M. during the past two days, it looks rather like stock manipulation than the larger financing which has hitherto marked his career.  When, on Wednesday, the directors of the L.D. and M. adjourned without declaring a dividend, that stock, which had advanced somewhat owing to the speculative trading of the past three weeks, fell from 56 to 50, and closed weak at 49-1/4.  Directly after the close of the exchange, Norcross, as though by program, reconvened the directors, who declared a dividend of one and one-half per cent.  The news was about by the time the market opened yesterday, and L.D. and M. made the record jump of the year, going to 76 and closing strong at 75-1/2.  It scarcely went below that point to-day, and at two o’clock touched its highest notch—­76-3/4.  Considerable criticism of Norcross was heard on the street to-day.

(From the Wall Street Sun, Oct. 24, 190-)

    BROKERAGE FIRM ASSIGNS

The firm of Bulger and Watson, promoters and Stock Exchange operators, made an assignment this morning.  Liabilities $276,125; assets $81,300.  This failure followed the collapse of the Mongolia Copper Mine in Montana, news of which reached New York last Saturday.  Bulger and Watson were heavily interested in that property.  An unusual feature of this failure, according to those on the inside, was the action of Arthur Bulger, senior member of the firm, in the L.D. and M. flurry of last Wednesday and Thursday.  Bulger, it is said by those who know his affairs best, had speculated heavily in L.D. and M., playing for a rise.  On the eve of the fluky directors’ meeting of last Wednesday—­which, it will be remembered, adjourned without action only to reconvene after market hours and declare a dividend—­Bulger began through his brokers to unload.  It is believed that he was acting upon some advance inside information of the directors’ action.  He was sold clean out of this stock when the market closed Wednesday afternoon.  Had he held on, the firm would doubtless have been able to survive the Mongolia crash, for L.D. and M., following the unexpected action of the directors in declaring a dividend, jumped on Thursday from 50 to the neighborhood of 75.  The failure will involve no other firms, it is thought.

As the curve of Sandy Hook blotted from sight the last, low glimpse of the skyscrapers which point Manhattan, Blake touched Annette’s arm.  She turned from her reveries; the distance faded from her eyes.

“It’s the end of a life for you—­that,” he said.  “We don’t see New York again for two years.  We’re going back over the girlhood you never had—­you’re going to dance and motor and walk—­yes and coquette, too—­or as much as you care to with me as a husband.  For two years, you’re just going to play!”

Then, noticing the expression of the dog who beholds his master with which her sapphirine eyes regarded him, he dropped his hand on hers.