"Speak up, my boy. I am a little hard of hearing," said Mr. Robison through his nose, with a pleasant smile.
The customers, to a man, blessed the catarrh that caused the deafness which would give them the tip they all expected.
"The photographer says the pictures came out very fine indeed."
The looking and listening customers, to a man, murmured, "Stung again!"
"Wait a minute my lad. Here!" and he gave the office-boy a five-dollar bill and a small envelope.
"Thank you very much, sir," said the boy. He put the five dollars in his pocket, beamed gratefully on Mr. Robison, gazed pityingly at the customers, and looked at the envelope. It said, "Mr. Richards."
He gave the envelope to Mr. Richards, who had retreated into the private office. The broker opened it. It contained one of Robison's slips, on which was written:
_Buy twenty thousand Con. Steel at the market._
Richards rushed the order to the Board Room. It helped to steady the price. Presently Mr. Richards approached Robison and sat in the empty place beside him. Feeling that they were not wanted, two polite customers moved away, ostensibly not to hear; but they tried to listen just the same.
"Your order is executed, Mr. Robison." Mr. Richards whispered it out of a corner of his mouth without turning his head, all the time looking meditatively at the quotation-board.
"Do you think--" began the broker in a voice that would make flint turn to putty.
"I do!" cut in Robison. "I do, indeed! There is no telling what has happened. The sharpness of the break was intensified by two facts." He had unconsciously raised his voice.
A startled look fastened itself on the seventeen faces of the seventeen customers who were short of Steel. The seventeen owners of the faces drew nearer to Mr. Robison, who, apparently unaware of having any other listener than Mr. George B. Richards, went on, nasally but amiably:
"By two things: First, the mystery. What has become of Mr. W. H. Garrettson? Second: If the great Garrettson has disappeared it must be because of a worse-than-death. Many things can be worse than death, in the stock-market--failure, for instance."
"Yes, it is! So is the disappearance of W. H. Garrettson, one of the best-known men in America, in broad daylight, in a crowded and very efficiently policed city thoroughfare."