Sometimes there had been hours of tense excitement, when even his uncle had stood by the ticker, and when every bankable security in the box had been overhauled and sent post-haste to the bank or trust company.

Jack, followed by the porter with a self-cocking revolver in his outside pocket, had more than once carried the securities himself, returning to the office on the run with a small scrap of paper good for half a million or so tucked away in his inside pocket.

Then the old monotony had returned with its dull routine and so had the chatter and talk.

"Buy me a hundred." "Yes, let 'em go." "No, I don't want to risk it." "What's my balance ?" "Thought you'd get another eighth for that stock." "Sold at that figure, anyhow," etc.
Under these conditions life to a boy of Jack's provincial training and temperament seemed narrowed down to an arm-chair, a black-board, a piece of chalk and a restless little devil sputtering away in a glass case, whose fiat meant happiness or misery.

Only the tongue of the demon was in evidence.