I made a few dispositions accordingly. Taking Doddridge Knapp's hint, I engaged another broker as a relief to Eppner, a short fat man, with the baldest head I ever saw, a black beard and a hook-nose, whose remarkable activity and scattering charges had attracted my attention in the morning session. Wallbridge was his name, I found, and he proved to be as intelligent as I could wish--a merry little man, with a joke for all things, and a flow of words that was almost overwhelming. “Omega? Yes,” chuckled the stout little broker, after he had assured himself of my financial standing. “But you ought to have bought this morning, if that's what you want. It was hell popping and the roof giving 'way all at once.” The little man had an abundant stock of profanity which he used unconsciously and with such original variations that one almost forgot the blasphemy of it while listening to him. “You ought to have been there,” he continued, “and watched the boys shell 'em out!” “Yes, I heard you had lively times.” “Boiling,” he said, with coruscating additions in the way of speech and gesture. “If it hadn't been for Decker and some fellow we haven't had a chance to make out yet the bottom of the market would have been resting on the roof of the lower regions.” The little man's remark was slightly more direct and forcible, but this will do for a revised version. “Decker!” I exclaimed, pricking up my ears. “I thought he had quit the market.” As I had never heard of Mr. Decker before that moment this was not exactly the truth, but I thought it would serve me better. “Decker out of it!” gasped Wallbridge, his bald head positively glistening at the absurdity of the idea. “He'll be out of it when he's carried out.” “I meant out of Omega. Is he getting up a deal?” The little broker looked vexed, as though it crossed his mind that he had said too much. “Oh, no. Guess not. Don't think he is,” he said rapidly. “Just wanted to save the market, I guess. If Omega had gone five points lower, there would have been the sickest times in the Street that we've seen since the Bank of California closed and the shop across the way,”--pointing his thumb at the Exchange,--“had to be shut up. But maybe it wasn't Decker, you know. That's just what was rumored on the Street, you know.” I suspected that my little broker knew more than he was willing to tell, but I forbore to press him further; and giving him the order to buy all the Omega stock he could pick up under fifty, I made my way to Eppner. The blue-black eyes of that impassive agent snapped with a glow of interest when I gave him my order to sell the other purchases of the morning and buy Omega, but faded into a dull stare when I lingered for conversation. I was not to be abashed. “I wonder who was picking up Omega this morning?” I said. “Oh, some of the shorts getting ready to fill contracts,” he replied in his dry, uninterested tones. “I heard that Decker was in the market for the stock,” I said.