But just about five
minutes to ten, before the Stock Exchange opened, the news came in
over the wire from our financial man on Broad Street: "The System has
forced James Bruce, partner of Kerr Parker, the dead banker, to sell
his railroad, steamship, and rubber holdings to it. On this condition
it promises unlimited support to the market."
"Forced!" muttered the managing editor, as he waited on the office
'phone to get the, composing-room, so as to hurry up the few lines in
red ink on the first page and beat our rivals on the streets with the
first extras. "Why, he's been working to bring that about for the past
two weeks. What that System doesn't control isn't worth having--it
edits the news before our men get it, and as for grist for the divorce
courts, and tragedies, well--Hello, Jenkins, yes, a special extra.
Change the big heads--copy is on the way up--rush it."
"So you think this Parker case is a mess?" I asked.
"I know it. That's a pretty swift bunch of females that have been
speculating at Kerr Parker & Co.'s. I understand there's one
Titian-haired young lady--who, by the way, has at least one husband
who hasn't yet been divorced--who is a sort of ringleader, though she
rarely goes personally to her brokers' office. She's one of those
uptown plungers, and the story is that she has a whole string of
scalps of alleged Sunday-school superintendents at her belt. She
can make Bruce do pretty nearly anything, they say. He's the latest
conquest.
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