On the train he remembered Webber's business, and as soon as he reached the city he went to the brokers' office. The morning session of the Exchange had just closed, and Einstein was fluttering in and out of his private office, sending telegrams and telephone messages. Sommers got his ear for a moment and explained his errand. "I don't know anything about the stocks," he concluded. "But I think you had best close his account, as it will be some weeks before he should be troubled with such things." "Damn shame!" Einstein remarked irritably, removing his cigar from his mouth. "I could have got him out even this morning. Now, it's too late." As Sommers seemed ignorant of the market, the broker went on to explain, meanwhile sending a telegram: "Most of his is Consolidated Iron--one of Carson's new promotions. Porter is in it, and a lot of big men. Splendid thing, but these new industrials are skittish as colts, and the war talk is like an early frost. Yesterday it was up to ninety, but to-day, after that Venezuelan business in the Senate, it backed down ten points. That about cleans our friend out." "He doesn't own the stock, then?" Sommers asked. Einstein looked at the doctor pityingly. "He's taken a block of two hundred on margins. We hold some Baking Powder common for him, too. But he owns that." Sommers lingered about, irresolute. He didn't like to take the responsibility of selling out Webber, nor the equal responsibility of doing nothing. Miss M'Gann's hopes, he reflected, hung on this stock trade. "What is the prospect to-morrow?" Sommers asked timidly. He felt out of place in all the skurry of the brokers' office, where men were drinking in the last quotations as the office boy scratched them on the board. "Dunno. Can't tell. Good, if the Senate doesn't shoot off its mouth any more." "How much is Webber margined for?" "Say, Phil," Einstein sang out to his partner, who came out from another cubbyhole, "how much has Webber on Iron?" "Six points," White replied. He nodded to Sommers. The doctor remembered White as one of the negative figures of his early months in Chicago,--a smiling, slim, youthful college boy. Evidently he was the genteel member of the firm. Sommers thought again. He could not wait. "Will you carry him five points more?" he asked. "Can you put up the money?" White replied indifferently. "No," the doctor admitted. "But I will try to get it at once." Einstein shook his head. But White asked, good-naturedly, "Are you sure?" "I think so," the doctor replied. "Well, that'll tide him over; the market is sure to go back next week."