Part 32 (1/2)

”That's just it, the 'excitement.' You don't know, Curtis. It is changing you. You are so nervous sometimes, and sometimes you don't listen to me when I talk to you. I can just see what's in your mind.

It's wheat--wheat--wheat, wheat--wheat--wheat, all the time. Oh, if you knew how I hated and feared it!”

”Well, old girl, that settles it. I wouldn't make you unhappy a single minute for all the wheat in the world.”

”And you will stop speculating?”

”Well, I can't pull out all in a moment, but just as soon as a chance comes I'll get out of the market. At any rate, I won't have any business of mine come between us. I don't like it any more than you do.

Why, how long is it since we've read any book together, like we used to when you read aloud to me?”

”Not since we came back from the country.”

”By George, that's so, that's so.” He shook his head. ”I've got to taper off. You're right, Laura. But you don't know, you haven't a guess how this trading in wheat gets a hold of you. And, then, what am I to do? What are we fellows, who have made our money, to do? I've got to be busy. I can't sit down and twiddle my thumbs. And I don't believe in lounging around clubs, or playing with race horses, or murdering game birds, or running some poor, helpless fox to death. Speculating seems to be about the only game, or the only business that's left open to me--that appears to be legitimate. I know I've gone too far into it, and I promise you I'll quit. But it's fine fun. When you know how to swing a deal, and can look ahead, a little further than the other fellows, and can take chances they daren't, and plan and manoeuvre, and then see it all come out just as you had known it would all along--I tell you it's absorbing.”

”But you never do tell me,” she objected. ”I never know what you are doing. I hear through Mr. Court or Mr. Gretry, but never through you.

Don't you think you could trust me? I want to enter into your life on its every side, Curtis. Tell me,” she suddenly demanded, ”what are you doing now?”

”Very well, then,” he said, ”I'll tell you. Of course you mustn't speak about it. It's nothing very secret, but it's always as well to keep quiet about these things.”

She gave her word, and leaned her elbows on the table, prepared to listen intently. Jadwin crushed a lump of sugar against the inside of his coffee cup.

”Well,” he began, ”I've not been doing anything very exciting, except to buy wheat.”

”What for?”

”To sell again. You see, I'm one of those who believe that wheat is going up. I was the very first to see it, I guess, way back last April.

Now in August this year, while we were up at the lake, I bought three million bushels.”

”Three--million--bushels!” she murmured. ”Why, what do you do with it?

Where do you put it?”

He tried to explain that he had merely bought the right to call for the grain on a certain date, but she could not understand this very clearly.

”Never mind,” she told him, ”go on.”

”Well, then, at the end of August we found out that the wet weather in England would make a short crop there, and along in September came the news that Siberia would not raise enough to supply the southern provinces of Russia. That left only the United States and the Argentine Republic to feed pretty much the whole world. Of course that would make wheat valuable. Seems to be a short-crop year everywhere. I saw that wheat would go higher and higher, so I bought another million bushels in October, and another early in this month. That's all. You see, I figure that pretty soon those people over in England and Italy and Germany--the people that eat wheat--will be willing to pay us in America big prices for it, because it's so hard to get. They've got to have the wheat--it's bread 'n' b.u.t.ter to them.”

”Oh, then why not give it to them?” she cried. ”Give it to those poor people--your five million bushels. Why, that would be a G.o.dsend to them.”

Jadwin stared a moment.

”Oh, that isn't exactly how it works out,” he said.

Before he could say more, however, the maid came in and handed to Jadwin three despatches.

”Now those,” said Laura, when the servant had gone out, ”you get those every morning. Are those part of your business? What do they say?”

”I'll read them to you,” he told her as he slit the first envelopes.