WHEAT IN WESTERN CANADA 117 



with their fingers, springing up and down, seizing one an- 

 other by the shoulders, making notes of sales, and sending 

 off telegrams ; but, for a long time, not one coherent word 

 reached my ears and I could never tell whether a man was 

 selling flax, oats, barley, or wheat. The members of the 

 Exchange were evidently communicating with one another 

 in an unknown language. Telegraph boys were rushing 

 from the traders in the pit to the adjacent telegraph office 

 which stretches from one end of the trading room to the 

 other. Here the ticking never ceased for an instant, and 

 more than twenty clerks behind a long counter were busily 

 employed dispatching messages. The boy in charge of the 

 numerous telephone stations summoned traders who had 

 been called, by crying their names through a speaking 

 trumpet, for that was the only means of making a summons 

 heard above the din of the wheat-pit. I particularly no- 

 ticed one man who appeared desperately anxious to buy 

 May oats, for he jumped up and down as fast as he could 

 more than twenty times in succession, and yelled again and 

 again at the top of his voice : " Sell May oats ! Sell May 

 oats ! Sell May oats ! " Whether or not he obtained what 

 he wanted, I am not sure, for after the most prodigal ex- 

 penditure of physical energy he subsided, possibly from 

 exhaustion, and I lost sight of him in the crowd. High 

 above the long stretch of blackboards at one end of the 

 trading room where the blackboard men were continuously 

 rubbing out old figures and chalking in new ones, was a 

 large dial, something like the face of a clock. Upon it, 

 in letters made red with electric light, stood out the syllable 

 Dec. which stands for December wheat, i. e., wheat that 

 must be delivered in December. And above this was the 

 figure 3 which, by reference to the blackboard, could be 

 understood as standing for the 3 in the price of $1.93. 

 Then around the edge of the dial was the price of Decern- 



