Page:Melville Davisson Post--The Man of Last Resort.djvu/92

68 He was an expert upon things of this sort, but he volunteered no information, and no comment. He merely smiled and murmured “Yes,” in a voice which reminded one of oil being poured from a very full barrel.

“You see,” continued the Honorable Ambercrombie Hergan, “it's this way. There is a broker in Chicago who is a friend of mine. I saved him from the jug when he was a kid, and he never forgot it. Well, he went to Chicago, raked together a bunch of money, and bought a seat in the Stock Exchange. He was lucky, and now he is away up. He is on the inside, and he says that there is going to be a big raise in oil stocks; that the Standard Oil Company has been forcing it down in order to squeeze out the little dealers, and that they are right now at the bottom, and when they let go, it will fly back to a dollar.”

At this point in the narrative, Crawley murmured “Yes,” then leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He was not quite ready to puncture Mr. Hergan's balloon, and it was not his way to offer objections to unfinished propositions.