"You're your own best judge, of course. But if that stock opens this morning above the point at which it closed last night, there's going to be more fun to-day in Wall Street than we've had for many a year. It looks to me like a rock-ribbed corner." Mr. Juniper Gallivant bowed his head as if in deep reflection. As a matter of fact, he was fermenting with excitement. He looked at his watch. It was within fifteen minutes of the time for the Exchange to open. "A corner!" he softly exclaimed to himself. "A corner, ye gods! and my balance in the Chemical Bank is $2.17. A corner, and I not in it!" Mr. Gallivant's fingers began to itch viciously, and the perspiration broke out copiously under his thick red hair. By a great struggle he managed to suppress all outward signs of his emotion, while he continued to commune with his own mind. "It's no use," he thought. "I must give up all idea of laying in with a corner when I haven't got money enough to set up a decent champagne supper. No, I must draw that $380, and the question is, how to do it and keep my credit good. Ha! an idea strikes me!" He turned quietly to the broker and said aloud: "Give me a pen, Thwicket!" He took a blank check from his pocket-book--a check on the Chemical Bank, wherein $2.17 reposed peacefully to his credit. "I don't think you have very much money of mine here, Thwicket?" he continued, as he slowly wrote the date-line in the check. "Don't think we have. Robert, what is Mr. Gallivant's balance?" The clerk turned over his ledger and presently replied: "Mr. Gallivant has a credit of $382.22." [Illustration: "ROBERT, WHAT IS MR. GALLIVANT'S BALANCE?"] "I don't think we'll bother with Snapshot Consolidated, Thwicket. Truth is, I'm afraid of it. My wits haven't been working right here lately. But I'll just give you a check for $20,000, and you can buy me a nice little block of Michigan Border--say a hundred shares, just to see how the cat jumps, you know." Thwicket took the check, but with a troubled air. "My dear Gallivant," he said, "why do a thing like that? I'm very glad to have another order from you, but I don't want to see a valuable customer like you lose any more money. Michigan Border was doing very well a month ago, but it is declining now, and for good reasons. Let's take a flyer in Snapshot!"