His greatest _coups_ on the money-market had been in a great measure the result of this faculty of prompt decision.

To-day he possessed himself of the blotting-pad, and examined the half-formed syllables stamped upon it with as much coolness and self-possession as if he had been seated in his own office reading his own newspaper.

A man given to hesitation would have looked to the right and the left and watched for his opportunity--and lost it.
Philip Sheldon knew better than to waste his chances by needless precaution; and he made himself master of all the intelligence the blotting-pad could afford him before the clerk emerged from the inner den where the rattling and stamping was going forward.
"I thought as much," muttered the stockbroker, as he recognised traces of his brother's sprawling penmanship upon the pad.

The message had been written with a heavy hand and a spongy quill pen, and had left a tolerably clear impression of its contents on the blotting-paper.
Here and there the words stood out bold and clear; here and there, again, there was only one decipherable letter amongst a few broken hieroglyphics.

Mr.Sheldon was accustomed to the examination of very illegible documents, and he was able to master the substance of that random impression.