ks. He must be in the thick of it.
Wingate must be on hand, and his two brothers. He must tell them how to
sell and when and what to buy. His great hour had come!

Chapter LIX

The banking house of Jay Cooke & Co., in spite of its tremendous
significance as a banking and promoting concern, was a most
unpretentious affair, four stories and a half in height of gray stone
and red brick. It had never been deemed a handsome or comfortable
banking house. Cowperwood had been there often. Wharf-rats as long as
the forearm of a man crept up the culverted channels of Dock Street
to run through the apartments at will. Scores of clerks worked under
gas-jets, where light and air were not any too abundant, keeping track
of the firm's vast accounts. It was next door to the Girard National
Bank, where Cowperwood's friend Davison still flourished, and where the
principal financial business of the street converged. As Cowperwood ran
he met his brother Edward, who was coming to the stock exchange with
some word for him from Wingate.

"Run and get Wingate and Joe," he said. "There's something big on this
afternoon. Jay Cooke has failed."

Edward waited for no other word, but hurried off as directed.

Cowperwood reached Cooke & Co. among the earliest. To his utter
astonishment, the solid brown-oak doors, with which he was familiar,
were shut, and a notice posted on them, which he quickly read, ran:

September 18, 1873.
To the Public--

We regret to be obliged to announce that, owing to
unexpected demands on us, our firm has been obliged to
suspend payment. In a few days we will be able to present a
statement to our creditors. Until which time we must ask
their patient consideration. We believe our assets to be
largely in excess of our liabilities.

Jay Cooke & Co.

A magnificent gleam of triumph sprang into Cowperwood's eye. In company
with many others he turned and ran back toward the exchange, while a
reporter, who had come for information knocked at the massive doors
of the banking house, and was told by a porter, who peered out of a
diamond-shaped aperture, that Jay Cooke had gone home for the day and
was not to be seen.

"Now," thought Cowperwood, to whom this panic spelled opportunity, not
ruin, "I'll get my innings. I'll go short of this--of everything."

Before, when the panic following the Chicago fire had occurred, he had
been long--had been compelled to stay l