Representative Narratives

r its abundance of detail, which leaves little to the imagination, and it approximates a word-photograph of the scene presented. The reader feels not so much the process of selection as the attempt to include every possible circumstance -- a characteristic of Norris'a striking realism. The real business of the morning was over. The Pit knew it. ... The traders stood around in expectant attitudes, looking into one another's faces, waiting for what they could not exactly say; loath to leave the Pit lest something should "turn up" the moment their backs were turned. By degrees the clamor died away, ceased, began again irregularly, then abruptly stilled. Here and there a bid was called, an offer made, like the intermittent crack of small arms after the stopping of the cannonade. "Sell five May at one eighth." " Sell twenty at one quarter." "Give one eighth for May." For an instant the shoutings were renewed. Then suddenly the gong struck. The traders began slowly to leave the Pit. One of the floor officers, an old fellow in uniform and vizored cap, appeared, gently shouldering towardthe door the groups wherein the bidding and offering were still languidly going on. His voice full of remon- stration, he repeated continually: 1 From chapter in of The Pit. By permission of the publishers, Messrs. Doubleday, Page