Hayward, familiar with Dorr’s record, promptly “coppered” his “tip” to buy, banking on Dorr’s consistent mendacity. But Mr. William G. Dorr, shrewdest and boldest of all Western stock gamblers, fooled everybody—he actually told the truth. That week the directors did exactly as he had predicted. When a speculator of his calibre lies he fools only one half—the foolish half—of the Street. When he tells the truth he deceives everybody. Before Wall Street could recover from the shock the price of the stock was up 5 points, which meant that Hayward was out $25,000 on that deal alone. But, in addition, the general list was carried upward sympathetically. The semi-paralyzed bulls regained confidence as they saw the successful outcome of the Chicago gambler’s manœuvres in Consolidated Steel Rod. Money rates and bear hopes fell; stock values and bull courage rose! Hayward began “covering” Steel Rod. He “bought in” 5,000 shares, and after he finished he had lost $26,750 by the deal. He was still “short” about 12,000 shares of other stocks, on which his “paper” losses, at the last quoted prices, were over $35,000; but if he tried to buy back such a large amount of stock in a market so sensitive to any kind of bull impetus, he would send prices upward in a jiffy, increasing his own losses very materially. He went to his office that morning in a tremor. He consulted the cashier, and found he had only $52,000 at the bank, of which two thirds belonged to his customers. He was already, morally speaking, an embezzler. He was ruined if he didn’t cover, and he was ruined if he did. His “seat” on the Stock Exchange was worth possibly $40,000, not a cent more; and as he personally owed his out-of-town correspondents nearly $38,000, he could not avoid being hopelessly ruined. Moreover, his bankruptcy would not be an “honest” failure, for, as he told himself bitterly, after the harm was done, “I had no business to speculate on my own hook with other people’s money.” He had felt it rather than had seen it coming, for, gambler-like, he had closed his eyes and had buried his head in the sand of hope, trusting in luck to protect him from punishment. But now he was face to face with the question that every gambler dreads: “If I stood to lose all, how desperate a risk would I take in order to get it back?” The answer is usually so appallingly thief-like that the numerous Haywards of the Stock Exchange and the Board of Trade forthwith stop thinking with a suddenness that does credit to the remnants of their honesty. But it haunts them, does the ominous question and the commenced but unfinished answer. As he left his office to go to the “Board Room” he put to himself the fateful query. But he would not let himself answer it until he had stopped at “Fred’s,” the official barroom of the Stock Exchange, and had taken a stiff drink of raw whiskey. Then the answer came.