button-holed every third man on the street; he drank in every hint that was dropped in his hearing. On Tuesday afternoon he "cleaned up" his capital and found himself in possession of three thousand five hundred dollars.
"Peckham's going it hard," men said at the club. "He must be awfully bitten."
All day Wednesday he could not muster courage to put his money into anything, though stocks were booming on every hand. And yet on Wednesday, as on Monday and on Tuesday, he did his office work and superintended that of his subordinates methodically and exactly. The substratum of character which the long-headed Hillerton had built upon, held firm.
On Wednesday evening Peckham stood, wild-eyed and haggard, in the light of Estabrook's drug-store and scanned the faces of the foot-passengers. Early in the evening Elliot Chittenden came along with a grip-sack in his hand, just down from Lame Gulch. Peckham fell upon him like a footpad, whispering hoarsely:
"For God's sake give me a pointer."
"Jove!" said Chittenden, afterward, "I thought it was a hold-up, sure as trumps."
