During the six months Jack had stood at his desk new faces had
filled the chairs--the talk had varied; though he felt only the
weary monotony of it all. Sometimes there had been hours of tense
excitement, when even his uncle had stood by the ticker, and when
every bankable security in the box had been overhauled and sent
post-haste to the bank or trust company. Jack, followed by the
porter with a self-cocking revolver in his outside pocket, had
more than once carried the securities himself, returning to the
office on the run with a small scrap of paper good for half a
million or so tucked away in his inside pocket. Then the old
monotony had returned with its dull routine and so had the chatter
and talk. "Buy me a hundred." "Yes, let 'em go." "No, I don't want
to risk it." "What's my balance?" "Thought you'd get another
eighth for that stock." "Sold at that figure, anyhow," etc.
Under these conditions life to a boy of Jack's provincial training
and temperament seemed narrowed down to an arm-chair, a black-
board, a piece of chalk and a restless little devil sputtering
away in a glass case, whose fiat meant happiness or misery.
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