"We're done, I tell you. We needn't care a damn now where copper goes to. We're out of it--and--Uncle Peter, we're broke." "Out of copper? Broke? But you said--" He seemed to be making an effort to comprehend. His lack of grasp was pitiful. "Out of copper, but there's Western Trolley and that Cordage stock--" "Everything wiped out, I tell you--Union Cordage gone down thirty-five points, somebody let out the inside secrets--and God only knows how far Western Trolley's gone down." "Are you all in?" "Every dollar--you knew that. But say," he brightened out of his despair, "there's the One Girl--a good producer--Shepler knows the property--Shepler's in this block--" and he was gone. The old man strolled out into the trading-room again. A curious grim smile softened his square jaw for a moment. He resumed his comfortable chair and took up a newspaper, glancing incidentally at the crowd of excited men about the tickers. He had about him that air of repose which comes to big men who have stayed much in big out-of-door solitudes. "Ain't he a nervy old guy?" said a crisp little money-broker to Fouts. "They're wiped out, but you wouldn't think he cared any more about it than Mike the porter with his brass polish out there." The old man held his paper up, but did not read. Percival rushed in by him, beckoning him to the inner room. "Shepler's all right about the One Girl. He'll take a mortgage on it for two hundred thousand if you'll recommend it--only he can't get the money before to-morrow. There's bound to be a rally in this stock, and we'll go right back for some of the hair of the--why,--what's the matter--Uncle Peter!" The old man had reeled, and then weakly caught at the top of the desk with both hands for support. "Ruined!" he cried, hoarsely, as if the extent of the calamity had just borne in upon him. "My God! Ruined, and at my time of life!" He seemed about to collapse. Percival quickly helped him into a chair, where he became limp. "There, I'm all right. Oh, it's terrible! and we all trusted you so. I thought you had your pa's brains. I'd 'a' trusted you soon's I would Shepler, and now look what you led us into--fortune gone--broke--and all your fault!" "Don't, Uncle Peter--don't, for God's sake--not when I'm down! I can't stand it!" "Gamble away your own money--no, that wa'n't enough--take your poor ma's share and your sister's, and take what little I had to keep me in my old age--robbed us all--that's what comes of thinkin' a damned tea-drinkin' fop could have a thimble-full of brains!" "Don't, please,--not just now--give it to me good later--to-morrow--all you want to!" "And here I'm come to want in my last days when I'm too feeble to work. I'll die in bitter privation because I was an old fool, and trusted a young one." "Please don't, Uncle Peter!" "You led us in--robbed your poor ma and your sister. I told you I didn't know anything about it and you talked me into trusting you--I might 'a' known better."