Complete Works of Frank Norris by Frank Norris

Author:Frank Norris [Norris, Frank]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Classic literature and art
Publisher: Delphi Classics
Published: 2015-11-10T05:00:00+00:00

IX

“Well, that’s about all then, I guess,” said Gretry at last, as he pushed back his chair and rose from the table.

He and Jadwin were in a room on the third floor of the Grand Pacific Hotel, facing Jackson Street. It was three o’clock in the morning. Both men were in their shirt-sleeves; the table at which they had been sitting was scattered over with papers, telegraph blanks, and at Jadwin’s elbow stood a lacquer tray filled with the stumps of cigars and burnt matches, together with one of the hotel pitchers of ice water.

“Yes,” assented Jadwin, absently, running through a sheaf of telegrams, “that’s all we can do — until we see what kind of a game Crookes means to play. I’ll be at your office by eight.”

“Well,” said the broker, getting into his coat, “I guess I’ll go to my room and try to get a little sleep. I wish I could see how we’ll be to-morrow night at this time.”

Jadwin made a sharp movement of impatience.

“Damnation, Sam, aren’t you ever going to let up croaking? If you’re afraid of this thing, get out of it. Haven’t I got enough to bother me?”

“Oh, say! Say, hold on, hold on, old man,” remonstrated the broker, in an injured voice. “You’re terrible touchy sometimes, J., of late. I was only trying to look ahead a little. Don’t think I want to back out. You ought to know me by this time, J.”

“There, there, I’m sorry, Sam,” Jadwin hastened to answer, getting up and shaking the other by the shoulder. “I am touchy these days. There’s so many things to think of, and all at the same time. I do get nervous. I never slept one little wink last night — and you know the night before I didn’t turn in till two in the morning.”

“Lord, you go swearing and damning ‘round here like a pirate sometimes, J.,” Gretry went on. “I haven’t heard you cuss before in twenty years. Look out, now, that I don’t tell on you to your Sunday-school superintendents.”

“I guess they’d cuss, too,” observed Jadwin, “if they were long forty million wheat, and had to know just where every hatful of it was every second of the time. It was all very well for us to whoop about swinging a corner that afternoon in your office. But the real thing — well, you don’t have any trouble keeping awake. Do you suppose we can keep the fact of our corner dark much longer?”

“I fancy not,” answered the broker, putting on his hat and thrusting his papers into his breast pocket. “If we bust Crookes, it’ll come out — and it won’t matter then. I think we’ve got all the shorts there are.”

“I’m laying particularly for Dave Scannel,” remarked Jadwin. “I hope he’s in up to his neck, and if he is, by the Great Horn Spoon, I’ll bankrupt him, or my name is not Jadwin! I’ll wring him bone-dry. If I once get a twist of that rat, I won’t leave him hide nor hair to cover the wart he calls his heart.

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