“I've got a little over forty-eight thousand shares,” he said slowly, “and I must have near sixty thousand. It looks as though I'd have to fight for them.” “Which will cost you about a million and a half at present rates,” I returned. “I'll give you a million commission, Wilton, if you'll get them for that.” The King of the Street plainly did not underrate the task he had set. “Well, Decker isn't any better off than you,” I said consolingly. “He's ten or fifteen thousand shares worse off than I am.” “And he's put a fortune into Crown Diamond, and is pretty well loaded with Confidence.” “True, my boy.” “And so,” I argued, “he must be nearer the bottom of his sack than you are.” “Very good, Wilton,” said the King of the Street with a quizzical look. “But you've left one thing out. You don't happen to know that the directors of the El Dorado Bank had a secret meeting last night and decided to back Decker for all they are worth.” “Rather a rash proceeding,” I suggested. “Well, he had three millions of their money in his scheme, so I reckon they thought the tail might as well follow the hide,” explained my employer. “The only thing to do then is to get a bank yourself,” I returned. Doddridge Knapp's lips closed, and a trace of a frown was on his brows. “Well, this isn't business,” he said. “Now here is what I want,” he continued. And he gave directions for the buying at the afternoon session. “Now, not over one hundred and twenty-five,” was his parting injunction. “You may not get much--I don't think you will--though I have a scheme that may bring a reaction.” Doddridge Knapp's scheme for a reaction must have been one of the kind that goes off backward, for Omega jumped skyward on the afternoon call, and closed at one hundred and thirty. Rumors were flying fast that a big bonanza, “bigger than the Consolidated Virginia,” had been discovered on the six-hundred-foot level, and the great public was rushing to Pine Street to throw its dollars into the blind pool against Knapp, Decker and the El Dorado bank. And I had been able to get a scant one thousand five hundred shares when the call was over. “I did better than you,” said Doddridge Knapp, when I explained to him the course of the session. “I found a nest of two thousand five hundred, and gathered them in at one hundred and twenty. But that's all right. You've done well enough--as well as I expected.” “And still eight thousand to get,” I said. “Nearly.” “Well, we'll get them in due time, I suppose,” I said cheerfully. “We'll have 'em by Monday noon, or we won't have 'em at all,” growled Doddridge Knapp. “How is that?” “You seem to have forgotten, young man, that the stock transfer books of the Omega Company close on Monday at two o'clock.” As I had never heard this interesting piece of information before, I could not in strictness be said to have forgotten it. “Well, we ought to have the stock by that time,” I said consolingly.