two o'clock in the afternoon
He had gradually built up a service of correspondence all over the world . The first news of labor trouble on a gold field came to him , and his brokers indicated his view upon the situation in that particular area by `` bearing '' the stock of the affected company . If his Liverpool agents suddenly descended upon the Cotton Exchange and began buying May cotton in enormous quantities , the initiated knew that Saul Arthur Mann had been awakened from his slumbers by a telegram describing storm havoc in the cotton belt of the United States of America . When a curious blight fell upon the coffee plantations of Ceylon , a six-hundred-word cablegram describing the habits and characteristics of the minute insect which caused the blight reached Saul Arthur Mann at two o'clock in the afternoon , and by three o'clock the price of coffee had jumped . When , on another occasion , Señor Almarez , the President of Cacura , had thrown a glass of wine in the face of his brother-in-law , Captain Vassalaro , Saul Arthur Mann had jumped into the market and beaten down all Cacura stocks , which were fairly high as a result of excellent crops and secure government . He `` beared '' them because he knew that Vassalaro was a dead shot , and that the inevitable duel would deprive Cacura of the best president it had had for twenty years , and that the way would be open for the election of Sebastian Romelez , who had behind him a certain group of German financiers who desired to exploit the country in their own peculiar fashion . He probably built up a very considerable fortune , and it is certain that he extended the range of his inquiries until the making of money by means of his curious information bureau became only a secondary consideration .