lenched hands, livid faces, pallid foreheads on which beads of cold
sweat told of the interior anguish, lurid, passion-fired eyes,--all the
symptoms of a fever which at any moment might become frenzy were there.
The shouts of golden millions upon millions hurtled in all ears. The
labor of years was disappearing and reappearing in the wave line of
advancing and receding prices. With fortunes melting away in a second,
with five hundred millions of gold in process of sale or purchase, with
the terror of yet higher prices, and the exultation which came and went
with the whispers of fresh men entering from Broad street bearing
confused rumors of the probable interposition of the Government, it is
not hard to understand how reason faltered on its throne, and operators
became reckless, buying or selling without thought of the morrow or
consciousness of the present. Then came the terrific bid of Albert
Speyer for any number of millions at 160. William Parks sold instantly
two millions and a half in one lot. Yet the bids so far from yielding
rose to 161, 162, 162.5. For five minutes the Board reeled under the
ferocity of the attack. Seconds became hours. The agony of Wellington
awaiting Blucher was in the souls of the Bears. Then a broker, reported
to be acting for Baring & Brothers, at London, sold five millions to the
clique at the top price of the day. Hallgarten followed; and as the
shorts were gathering courage, the certain news that the Secretary of the
Treasury had come to the rescue swept through the chamber, gold fell from
160 to 140, and thence, with hardly the interval of one quotation, to
133. The end had come, and the exhausted operators streamed out of the
stifling hall into the fresh air of the street. To them, however, came
no peace. In some offices customers by dozens, whose margins were
irrevocably burnt away in the smelting-furnace of the Gold Board,
confronted their dealers with taunts and threats of violence for their
treachery. In others the nucleus of mobs began to form, and, as the day
wore off, Broad street had the aspect of a riot. Huge masses of men
gathered before the doorway of Smith, Gould, Martin & Co., and Heath &
Co. Fisk was assaulted, and his life threatened. Deputy-sheriffs and
police officers appeared on the scene. In Brooklyn a company of troops
were held in readiness to march upon Wall street.

"When night came, Broad street and its vicinity saw an unwonted sight.
The silen