“Very well, then, go and sell out,” roared Brewster.

“But she’s going up like—­”

“Sell, damn you!  Didn’t you hear?”

Gardner, dazed and weak, began selling, and finally liquidated the full line at prices ranging from 114 to 112 1/2, but Montgomery Brewster had cleared $58,550, and all because it was he and not the market that got excited.

CHAPTER XI

COALS OF FIRE

It was not that he had realized heavily in his investments which caused his friends and his enemies to regard him in a new light; his profit had been quite small, as things go on the Exchange in these days.  The mere fact that he had shown such foresight proved sufficient cause for the reversal of opinion.  Men looked at him with new interest in their eyes, with fresh confidence.  His unfortunate operations in the stock market had restored him to favor in all circles.  The man, young or old, who could do what he had done with Lumber and Fuel well deserved the new promises that were being made for him.

Brewster bobbed uncertainly between two emotions—­elation and distress.  He had achieved two kinds of success—­the desired and the undesired.  It was but natural that he should feel proud of the distinction the venture had brought to him on one hand, but there was reason for despair over the acquisition of $50,000.  It made it necessary for him to undertake an almost superhuman feat—­increase the number of his January bills.  The plans for the ensuing spring and summer were dimly getting into shape and they covered many startling projects.  Since confiding some of them to “Nopper” Harrison, that gentleman had worn a never-decreasing look of worry and anxiety in his eyes.

Rawles added to his despair a day or two after the Stock Exchange misfortune.  He brought up the information that six splendid little puppies had come to bless his Boston terrier family, and Joe Bragdon, who was present, enthusiastically predicted that he could get $100 apiece for them.  Brewster loved dogs, yet for one single horrible moment he longed to massacre the helpless little creatures.  But the old affection came back to him, and he hurried out with Bragdon to inspect the brood.

“And I’ve either got to sell them or kill them,” he groaned.  Later on he instructed Bragdon to sell the pups for $25 apiece, and went away, ashamed to look their proud mother in the face.

Fortune smiled on him before the day was over, however.  He took “Subway” Smith for a ride in the “Green Juggernaut,” bad weather and bad roads notwithstanding.  Monty lost control of the machine and headed for a subway excavation.  He and Smith saved themselves by leaping to the pavement, sustaining slight bruises, but the great machine crashed through the barricade and dropped to the bottom of the trench far below.  To Smith’s grief and Brewster’s delight the automobile was hopelessly