THE WIRE TAPPERS
some were penciling madly in call-books, some were feverishly handing slips to agile youths dodging in and out through the seething mass. Every now and then a loud-noted signal-bell sounded from one end of the hall, calling a messenger boy for despatches.
In the momentary little lulls of that human tempest Durkin could catch the familiar pithy staccato of telegraph keys cluttering and pulsating with their hurried orders and news. He could see the operators, where they sat, apathetically pounding the brass, as unmoved as the youth at the light-crowned, red-lined blackboard, who caught up the different slips handed to him and methodically chalked down the calls under the various months.
Then the tumult began afresh once more, and through it all Durkin could hear the deep, bass, bull-like chest-notes of one trader rising loud above all the others, answered from time to time by the clear, high, penetratingly insistent and challenging soprano of another.
Curry once more had cotton on the upward move! It was rumored that the ginners' report was to be a sensational one. Despatches from Southern points had shown advancing prices for spot cotton. A weak point had been found in the Government report. All unpicked cotton on the flooding Black Warrior bottoms would never reach a gin. The mills, it had been whispered about,
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