At three o'clock he glanced aside from his typewriter to see a director enter Breede's room. He did not lift his look above the hem of the man's coat, but he knew him for the quiet one. And yet, when the door closed upon him, he seemed to become as noisy as any of them. Bean heard his voice rising. Another director came, the big one who gripped a cigarette with an obviously cigar mouth. Once behind the shut door he seemed to approve of the noise and to be swelling its volume. Three other directors hurried in, the elderly advanced dresser in the lead. He, of course, was always indignant, but now the other two were manifesting choler equal to his own. They puffed and glowered and, when the door had closed, they seemed to help skilfully with the uproar. It was a mob scene. Bean was reminded of a newspaper line he had once or twice encountered: "The scene was one of indescribable confusion. Pandemonium reigned!" Pandemonium indubitably seemed to reign over those directors. He wondered. He wondered uncomfortably. "Buzz-z-z-z! Buzz-z-z-z-z! Buzz-z-z-z-z-z!" He quit wondering. He knew. Yet for a moment after he stood in their presence they seemed to take no note of him. They were not sitting decorously in chairs as he conceived that directors should. The big one with the cigarette sat on the table, ponderously balanced with a fat knee between fat red hands. Another stood with one foot on a chair. Only the quiet one was properly sitting down. The elderly advanced dresser was not even stationary. With the faultless coat thrown back by pocketed hands, revealing a waist line greater than it should have been, he strutted and stamped. He seemed to be trying to step holes into the rug, and to be exploding intimately to himself. "Plain enough," said the man who had been studying his foot on the chair. "Some one pulled the plug." "And away she goes--shoosh!" said the big man dramatically. "Kennedy & Balch buying right and left. Open at a hundred and twenty-five to-morrow, sure!" said the quiet one quietly. "Placed an order yesterday for four hundred shares and got 'em," said another, not so quietly. "And to-day they're bidding Federal Express up to the ceiling." "Plug pulled!" The advanced-dressing director strutted to the fore with a visibly purpling face. "Plug pulled? Want t' know _where_ it was pulled? Right in this office. Want to know who pulled it? _That!_" He pointed unmistakably to the child among them taking notes. At another time Bean might have quailed, at least momentarily; but he had now discovered that the advanced-dressing old gentleman used scent on his clothes. He was afraid of no man who could do that in the public nostrils. He surveyed the old gentleman with frank hostility, noting with approval, however, the dignified yet different pattern of his waistcoat. But he knew the other directors were looking hard at him. "Shrimp! snake!" added the old gentleman, like a shocked naturalist encountering a loathsome hybrid.