“It looks bad, gentlemen, very bad indeed, on the face of things. I hope some of you know who is fighting us. I don’t. General conditions haven’t changed since we began operations. Everything is going our way. There hasn’t been any professional buying in the rally of the last week. Everybody in the market thinks we have made the boom by taking profits. So nobody suspects that we have been hurt. That’s our safeguard. I believe we can make another raid without immediate danger of suspicion, if the chances warrant risking renewed attack. If we can break the market now there will be nothing to prevent our covering at our own figures. But can we break it? I can’t get even a decent hint of the source of the support the market is receiving. We can be sure it is confined to one source. I don’t believe it is any individual or private pool. There are none of the marks of any of the big operators. There is no man in the market able to raise the money, who is fool enough to fight the current at almost certain loss. I tell you, gentlemen, it has taken at least fifteen millions in cash to give prices the turn they have taken in the last ten days. “Where has it come from? Are the banks supporting the market in order to stave off a panic? I should know it if they were, but they can’t afford to do it, and I get nothing but denials from them. Is it a big Treasury scheme? I don’t believe it. The government wouldn’t dare interfere even indirectly, and I am sure the Assay Office disbursements are not Treasury gold. Is there a London pool at work against us? It’s out of the question. I’ve had the closest inquiries made on the other side, and my correspondent cables this afternoon that it is impossible. ‘Americans’ were never so unpopular in the English market, and you couldn’t get the boldest London operator to touch them. I can think of nothing else. I am completely in the dark, but our salvation depends on the solution of the mystery. What do you hear, Forbes?” and he turned to the broker at his left. “Nothing satisfactory. I agree that it is the new bullion from the Assay Office that is being used against us, but I am quite unable to trace the connection. One of our confidential men learned from an Assay Office clerk to-day that Strong & Co. have been the heaviest dealers in bullion there recently.