I knew nothing about
the price of stocks but I was sure that the orders he had given me
involved many thousands of dollars. Yet it might be--the thought struck
home to me--that the credit had not been provided for me, and my checks
on the Nevada Bank would serve only to land me in jail.
The disturbed condition of the books attracted my attention once more.
The volumes were scattered over the desk and thrown about the room as
though somebody had been seeking for a mislaid document. I looked
curiously over them as I replaced them on the shelves. They were law-
books, California Reports, and the ordinary text-books and form-books
of the attorney. All bore on the fly-leaf the name of Horace H.
Plymire, but no paper or other indication of ownership could I find.
I wondered idly who this Plymire might be, and pictured to myself some
old attorney who had fallen into the hands of Doddridge Knapp, and had,
through misfortune, been forced to sell everything for the mess of
pottage to keep life in him. But there was small time for musing, and I
went out to do Doddridge Knapp's bidding in the stock-gambling
whirlpool of Pine Street.
There was already a confused murmur of voices about the rival exchanges
that were the battlegrounds of millionaires. The "curbstone boards"
were in session. The buyers who traded face to face, and the brokers
who carried their offices under their hats, were noisily bargaining,
raising as much clamor over buying and selling a few shares as the most
important dealer in the big boards could raise over the transfer of as
many thousands.
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