“What’s the matter with a pool?” “How big?” coldly. “Up to the limit.” Again the Trust-maker smiled, uncertainly. “You haven’t all the capital stock, I hope.” “Well, call it 100,000 shares,” said Greenbaum, more uncertainly and less jovially. “Who is to be in it besides you?” “Oh, you know; the same old crowd.” “Oh, I know,” mimicked Mr. Sharpe, scornfully, “the same old crowd. You ought to have come to me before; it will take something to overcome your own reputations. How much will each take?” “We’ll fix that O. K. if you take hold,” answered Greenbaum, laughingly. “We’ve got over 100,000 shares and we’d rather some one else held some of it. We ain’t hogs. Ha! Ha!” “But, the distillers?” “They are in the pool. I’ve got most of their stock in my office. I’ll see that it does not come out until I say so.” There was a pause. Between Sharpe’s eyebrows were two deep lines. At length, he said: “Bring your friends here, this afternoon. Good-by, Greenbaum. And, I say, Greenbaum.” “Yes?” “No funny tricks at any stage of the game.” “What’s the use of saying such things, Mr. Sharpe?” with an experimental frown. “The use is so you won’t try any. Come at four,” and Mr. Sharpe began to pace up and down the room. Greenbaum hesitated, still frowning tentatively; but he said nothing and at length went out. Sharpe looked at the tape. “Turp” was 29¼. He resumed his restless march back and forth. It was only when the market “went against him” that Mr. Sharpe did not pace about the room in the mechanical way of a menagerie animal, glancing everywhere but seeing nothing. When something unexpected happened in the market Sharpe stood immobile beside the ticker, because his overworked nerves were tense—like a tiger into whose cage there enters a strange and eatable animal. On the minute of four there called on Mr. Sharpe the senior partners of the firms of Greenbaum, Lazarus & Co., I. & S. Wechsler, Morris Steinfelder’s Sons, Reis & Stern, Kohn, Fischel & Co., Silberman & Lindheim, Rosenthal, Shaffran & Co., and Zeman Bros. They were ushered not into the private office, but into a sumptuously furnished room, the walls of which were covered with dashing oil paintings of horses and horse-races. The visitors seated themselves about a long oaken table. Mr. Sharpe appeared at the threshold. “How do you do, gentlemen? Don’t move, please; don’t move.” He made no motion to shake hands with any of them, but Greenbaum came to him and held out his fat dexter resolutely and Sharpe took it. Then Greenbaum sat down and said, “We’re here,” and smiled, blandly. Sharpe stood at the head of the polished, shining table, and glanced slowly down the double row of alert faces. His look rested a fraction of a minute on each man’s eyes—a sharp, half-contemptuous, almost menacing look that made the older men uncomfortable and the younger resentful. “Greenbaum tells me you wish to pool your Turpentine stock and have me market it for you.”