When Jack, in reply to Breen's note, stepped into his uncle's office, no one would have recognized in the quick, alert, bronze-faced young fellow the retiring, almost timid, boy who once peered out of the port-hole of the cashier's desk.

Nor did Jack's eyes fall on any human being he had ever seen before.

New occupants filled the chairs about the ticker.

A few lucky ones--very few--had pulled out and stayed out, and could now be found at their country seats in various parts of the State, or on the Riviera, or in Egypt; but by far the larger part had crawled out of the fight to nurse their wounds within the privacy of their own homes where the outward show had to be kept up no matter how stringent the inside economies, or how severe the privations.

Others, less fortunate, had disappeared altogether from their accustomed haunts and were to be found filling minor positions in some far Western frontier town or camp, or menial berths on a railroad, while at least one victim, too cowardly to leave the field, had haunted the lunch counters, hotel lobbies, and race-tracks for months, preying on friends and acquaintances alike until dire poverty forced him into crime, and a stone cell and a steel grille had ended the struggle.
Failing to find any face he recognized, Jack approached a group around the ticker, and inquired for the head of the firm.