Robison looked anxiously at the broker, and Richards felt such an annoyance as a man might feel if compelled at the point of a pistol to listen to the reading of one hundred pages of the city directory. But he smiled tolerantly, for he had the professional amiability indispensable to men whose business consists of making money and of consoling clients for losing money. “Four what?” he asked. “Four sure ways.” “Which four?” asked Richards. He managed to convey both that he was dying to listen and that the rest of the world did not exist for him. “The Ant, the Spider, the Beaver, and the Lion. Out of the nineteen combinations in the Menagerie I've narrowed my choice to these four. You know conditions better than I and probably have seen the Cribbage Board. Have you a choice?” He looked at Richards so eagerly, and withal so shrewdly and sanely, that in self-defense the broker said: “I can't say that I have. Of course I am bullish--” “Of course. But the question is: Which--in a week?” Richards had no idea what was meant by this man with the sane eyes who said crazy things through his nose--a man who had one hundred thousand dollars to his credit with the firm. Perplexed to the verge of exasperation, Richards was stock-broker enough--when in doubt, bluff!--to say, with a frown, “Yes, that's the question: Which--in a week?” He shook his head as though he were trying to pick out the best for his beloved Robison. “I never was so puzzled in my life, and I want you to know that I've made money even in Rumanian bonds!” “I'm afraid I can't help you much.” “What does the I. S. Board say?” “Mr. Robison, exactly what do you mean by the I. S. Board?” “What? You don't know the International Syndicate Cribbage Board! Then how in Hades do you pick your combinations?” “We buy and sell stocks on our judgment of basic conditions or for special reasons.” “Ah, yes--like the public. You base your trades on gas and guess. Well, _I_ don't! I'd play the Ant, but I don't see the Granary full in a week. Jay Gould had a perfect mania for it; it was an obsession with him. And yet he seldom won commensurately with his risks. In the Northwest corner he was tied up over a year and lost more than a million. I guess we'll dispense with the Ant, though it looks so safe for the Granger group.” Robison seemed to be thinking aloud rather than asking for advice. But Richards, who was a Wall Street man to his finger-tips, said, gravely, “I think you are right.” Robison nodded, to show he had heard, and went on: “The situation in the Pacific Coast, of course, suggests the Beaver at once. I can see the Dam in Union Pacific; but I don't like to try it so soon after the Rothschilds worked it so openly in Berlin over the Agadir excuse. Too many people who have access to the Menagerie remember it. I realize all this, but,” he finished, with profound regret, “it _is_ such a cinch!”