"All right, I've got him." "Throw him over on the couch. Sit on him. That's it." Under their combined weights, DeLancy was flung, hoarse and screaming maledictions, to the couch, where despite objurgations and ravings Granning secured his arms behind his back with a strap and hobbled his legs. For half an hour Fred twisted and strove, raving and swearing or suddenly weakly remorseful, bursting into tears, cursing himself and his folly. The three sat silently, faces sternly masked, looking unwilling on the ugly spectacle of human frenzy in the raw. At the end of this time DeLancy became suddenly quiet and dropped off into sodden sleep. "At last," said Granning, rising. "Best thing for him. Oh, he won't hear us--talk all you like." "How hard is he hit?" said Bojo anxiously. Marsh shrugged his shoulder and swore. "How hard, Granning?" "Twenty thousand or more," said Granning gravely, "and there are some bad sides to it." He shook his head, glanced at DeLancy, and added: "Then there's the girl." "Louise Varney?" "The same--mother has been camping on the telephone all day. Not a very calm person, mother--ugh--nasty business!" "Rotten business," said Bojo, remorsefully. He went to the bay-window and stood there gazing out into the sickly night, paling before the first grays of the morning. He was subdued by this spectacle of the other side of speculation, wondering how many similar scenes were taking place in sleepless rooms somewhere in the dusky flight of roof-tops. Marsh, misunderstanding his mood, said: "How did it hurt you? You pulled through all right, didn't you?" Bojo came back thoughtfully, evading the question with another. "And you?" "Oh, better than I expected," said Marsh with a wry face. "I say, you're not--not cleaned out?" Granning rose and with his heavy hand turned him around solicitously. "How about it, son?" For hours Bojo had been debating his answer to this inevitable question without finding a solution. He drew his pocketbook and slowly extracted the check. "Gaze on that," he said solemnly. Granning took it, stared at it, and passed it to Marsh, who looked up with an exclamation: "For God's sake, what does that mean?" "It means," said Bojo slowly, "that I can tell you the truth now. We haven't lost a cent; on the contrary--" he paused and emphasized the next word--"_we_ have made a killing. We means you, Fred, and myself." "I don't get it," said Marsh, frowning. "The real object of the pool was not to bear Pittsburgh & New Orleans, but to buy it. If I let you sell short, it was only to get others to sell short. To-morrow I'll settle up with you and Fred, every cent you've lost, plus--" "Bojo, you're lying," said Marsh abruptly. "I'm not, I--" "And you're lying badly!" "What about that check?" "That's all right; Drake may have done what you said, but you never knew--" "Roscy, I swear."