The last day of August dawned fair in busy Boston. Summer sojourners were returning. John Nason's store was filled with new fall styles; the shoppers were crowding the streets, and the hustling, bustling life of a great city was at flood tide. Albert Page, full of business, was in his office, and Frank Nason was studying hard again, cheered by a new and sweet ray of hope. Small fortunes were being won and lost on State Street, and in one smoke-polluted broker's office Nicholas Frye sat watching the price of wheat. The September option opened that day at seventy-eight and one-quarter, rose to seventy-nine, fell to seventy-six and seven-eighths, rose to seventy-eight and then dropped back to seventy-six. He had margined his holdings to seventy-one, and if it fell to that price his sixty thousand dollars would be gone and he--ruined. For many nights he had had but little sleep, and that made hideous by dreams filled with the unceasing whir and click, click, click of the ticker. At times he had dreamed that a tape-like snake with endless coils was twining itself about him. He was worn and weary with the long nervous strain and misery of seeing his fortune slowly clipped away by the clicker's tick that had come to sound like the teeth of so many little devils snapping at him. To let his holdings go, he could not, and, lured on and on by the broker's daily uttered assertion that "wheat _could_ not go much lower, but must have a rally soon," he had kept putting up margins. Now all he could possibly raise was in the broker's hands, and when that was gone, all was lost. Frye sat and watched the blackboard where the uneven columns of quotations looked like so many little legs ever growing longer. Around him were a score of other men--no, insane fools--watching the figures that either made them curse their losses or gloat over their gains. No one spoke to another; no one cared whether another won or lost in the great gambling game that daily ruins its thousands. It was the caldron filled with lies, false reports, fictitious sales, and the hope and lust of gain that boiled and bubbled, heated by the fires of hell. And ever around that caldron the souls of men were circling, cursing their losses and gloating over their gains. And Frye was muttering curses. At eleven o'clock wheat stood at seventy-five and one-half; at eleven-thirty, seventy-four and seven-eighths; at twelve, seventy-four. Frye arose, and going to a nearby room, all mirrors and plate-glass, called at the bar for brandy. Two full glasses he tossed off like so much water, and then returned to his watching. Wheat was seventy-three and three-quarters!