The Banker and the Bear

The withered, leering, old Goddess of Luck must have grinned wide that morning. To smile knowingly over men's hopes is her delight; but to smile behind the back of a man who is smiling, is the double distillation of pleasure. Melville Sponley had never enjoyed living before as in those minutes, one or two less than ninety, while he played cautiously and allowed Pickering some small hope of winning, and postponed planting the last thrust in him until the hour he himself had set should have fully come. He had had fancies of this kind before, but never had he indulged one of them, and so this had the added delight of novelty.

But while he waited, John Bagsbury, whom he thought to be no longer in the game, was taking a hand in this last dealing of the cards. When Sponley smiled over Pickering's last desperate rally, Jervis Curtin had already sworn out a warrant that was to confound him. And when, after an amused glance at the big clock, the Bear began to deliver the final attack, it was too late, for the carriage that had driven through the streets in such reckless hurry had already pulled up before the Board of Trade building.