“Now then, now then!” spluttered the old gentleman, the pen poised.  “Don’t keep me waiting; don’t keep me, I say!  What amount?  Wha’ tamount?”

Bean’s eyes were withdrawn from the wall.  He came briskly to life.

“I’ll tell you in a moment.  I’ll get the shares.”

“Shrimp!” said the old gentleman triumphantly, when Bean had gone.

“He told me,” began Tully.  But the advanced dresser wanted no more of that.

“Shrimp!” he repeated.

Bean reentered with the certificates.  The old gentleman glanced angrily over them.

“Bean!” he exclaimed humorously.  “Vegetable after all; not a fish!  Funny name that!  Bunker Bean!  Boston, by gad!  Not bad that, I say!  Come, come, come!  Want par, of course—­all do!  There y’are, boy!”

He blotted the check, tore it from the book and waved it toward Bean as he turned to the director of the cigarette.

“About that proposition before us to-day, Mr. Chairman—­” but Bean had gone.  Observing this, the old gentleman looked about him.

“Shrimp!” he said contemptuously, with the convinced air of an expert in marine biology.

Bean, outside, once more addressed himself to typewriting.  He wondered if he should be seized with a toothache or a fainting spell.  Toothache was good, but perhaps Bulger had used that too often.  Still Tully would “fall” for a toothache.  It gave him a chance to say that if people would only go to a dentist once every three months—­Then he remembered that Tully was inside.  He wouldn’t make any excuse at all.

“Going out a few minutes,” he explained to old Metzeger as he swiftly changed from his office coat and adjusted the new straw hat.

Bulger glanced up from his machine, winked at him and shaped a word with his able mouth.  An adept in lip-reading could have seen it to be “Chubbins.”  Bean in response leered confession at him.

The broker’s office was in the adjoining block.

“I’ve just made a little deal,” explained Bean to the person who inquired his business.  “Here’s the check.  You know I’ve got a sort of an idea I’d like a little more of that Federal Express stuff.  Just buy me some the same as you did before, as much as you can get on ten margins, er—­I mean on ten points.”

“Nothing much doing in that stock,” suggested the expert.  “Why don’t you get down on some the live ones.  Now there’s Union Pacific—­”

“I know, but I want Federal Express.  That is, you see, I want it merely for a technical purpose.”  He felt happy at recalling Markham’s phrase.

“All right,” said the expert resignedly.  “We’ll do what we can.  May take three or four days.”

Bean started for the door.

“Say,” called the expert, as if on second thought, “you’re up at Breede’s office, ain’t you—­old J.B.’s?”

“Oh, I’m there for a few days yet,” said Bean.