Helped tremendously by the moratorium, the sagging market had ceased sagging, and some stocks were even beginning to recover. This was true for practically every line save those lines in which Francis owned and which Regan was bearing. He continued bearing and making them reluctantly fall, and he noted with joy the huge blocks of Tampico Petroleum which were being dumped obviously by no other person than Francis. “Now’s the time,” Regan informed his bear conspirators. “Play her coming and going. It’s a double ruff. Remember the list I gave you. Sell these, and sell short. For them there is no bottom. As for all the rest, buy and buy now, and deliver all that you sold. You can’t lose, you see, and by continuing to hammer the list you’ll make a double killing.” “How about yourself?” one of his bear crowd queried. “I’ve nothing to buy,” came the answer. “That will show you how square I have been in my tip, and how confident I am. I haven’t sold a share outside the list, so I have nothing to deliver. I am still selling short and hammering down the list, and the list only. There’s my killing, and you can share in it by as much as you continue to sell short.” * * * * * “There you are!” Bascom, in despair in his private office, cried to Francis at ten-thirty. “Here’s the whole market rising, except your lines. Regan’s out for blood. I never dreamed he could show such strength. We can’t stand this. We’re finished. We’re smashed now——you, me, all of us——everything.” Never had Francis been cooler. Since all was lost, why worry?—was his attitude; and, a mere layman in the game, he caught a glimpse of possibilities that were veiled to Bascom who too thoroughly knew too much about the game. “Take it easy,” Francis counseled, his new vision assuming form and substance with each tick of a second. “Let’s have a smoke and talk it over for a few minutes.” Bascom made a gesture of infinite impatience. “But wait,” Francis urged. “Stop! Look! Listen! I’m finished, you say?” His broker nodded. “You’re finished?” Again the nod. “Which means that we’re busted, flat busted,” Francis went on to the exposition of his new idea. “Now it is perfectly clear, then, to your mind and mine, that a man can never be worse than a complete, perfect, hundred-percent., entire, total bust.” “We’re wasting valuable time,” Bascom protested as he nodded affirmation. “Not if we’re busted as completely as you’ve agreed we are,” smiled Francis. “Being thoroughly busted, time, sales, purchases, nothing can be of any value to us. Values have ceased, don’t you see.” “Go on, what is it?” Bascom said, with the momentarily assumed patience of abject despair. “I’m busted higher than a kite now, and, as you say, they can’t bust me any higher.”