“Whom do you mean? Oh, Tuggs?” and the dapper clerk laughed sneeringly. “He’s got to be a regular nuisance round here, and we’re trying to get rid of him. He was rich once--a retired manufacturer, I think, who caught the Wall Street fever. Hartz has always been his broker, and I guess has sheared him down to his last dollar. At any rate, he used to shovel the dough in at a comfortable rate, but somehow or another he was nearly always on the wrong side of the market, and of late his investments haven’t amounted to shucks. Besides, he’s taken to drinking and has grown so disreputable in his looks that the boss doesn’t care to have him around any more. This last deal of his was two hundred shares of Lebanon and Jericho, which he bought on a ten-per-cent margin, as usual, for a rise, and I guess it took his last dollar. It’s fair stock, but fluctuates a good deal. After he bought it, it went to thirty-six, when he should have sold out. But he didn’t; expected it would go higher, of course, like all the lambs. Then it began to drop, and ever since it’s been below thirty-two he’s been on the anxious seat,” with a grin. “He’d drop in a dozen times a day and ask questions about it. He gave us all a pain; so I guess Hartz thought it was time to choke him off.” “He couldn’t close him out unless the stock went down ten per cent,” said Jack. “Of course not,” replied the clerk; “but it got pretty close to the danger mark day before yesterday, and we sent him a demand for more margin.” “And he couldn’t produce?” “He didn’t. Just before the Exchange closed Lebanon and Jericho touched twenty-two.” “And Mr. Hartz sold him out?” “Not at all. Hartz had something else to do than thinking about that measley little transaction.” “But I heard him tell the man he had closed him out at twenty-two,” persisted Jack. “Well,” said the clerk, with a wink, “there are more ways than one of killing a cat. The boss saw a chance of getting rid of an undesirable customer when he noted that the stock had touched twenty-two, though the last quotation, a few minutes later, was twenty-four and three-eighths. He simply made an arrangement this morning with another broker and told Jenkins to make an entry of the transaction as having occurred yesterday and to report him closed out at twenty-two--see? That’s done every day,” nodding good-bye to Jack. The boy understood, and his lip curled at the meanness of the transaction, for the steal was small. Not only that, but Jack knew that most reputable brokers, in a case where a man had been a good customer of the house, would sooner have strained a point in his favor than have worked the squeeze game against him. But Hartz wasn’t accustomed to do business in that way. “I’m dead sorry for the poor old fellow,” murmured Jack, turning to leave, just as Jenkins came over and thrust the statement into Tuggs’ trembling fingers. The old fellow looked at it blankly.