, ninety-three,
ninety-two, ninety-one, ninety, eighty-nine," you might have heard him
call; and when his sales were not sufficiently brisk he would turn to
something else--Rock Island, Panama, Central Pacific, Western Union,
Northwestern, Union Pacific. He saw his brother and Wingate hurrying in,
and stopped in his work long enough to instruct them. "Sell everything
you can," he cautioned them quietly, "at fifteen points off if you have
to--no lower than that now--and buy all you can below it. Ed, you see
if you cannot buy up some local street-railways at fifteen off. Joe, you
stay near me and buy when I tell you."

The secretary of the board appeared on his little platform.

"E. W. Clark & Company," he announced, at one-thirty, "have just closed
their doors."

"Tighe & Company," he called at one-forty-five, "announce that they are
compelled to suspend."

"The First National Bank of Philadelphia," he called, at two o'clock,
"begs to state that it cannot at present meet its obligations."

After each announcement, always, as in the past, when the gong had
compelled silence, the crowd broke into an ominous "Aw, aw, aw."

"Tighe & Company," thought Cowperwood, for a single second, when he
heard it. "There's an end of him." And then he returned to his task.

When the time for closing came, his coat torn, his collar twisted
loose, his necktie ripped, his hat lost, he emerged sane, quiet,
steady-mannered.

"Well, Ed," he inquired, meeting his brother, "how'd you make out?" The
latter was equally torn, scratched, exhausted.

"Christ," he replied, tugging at his sleeves, "I never saw such a place
as this. They almost tore my clothes off."

"Buy any local street-railways?"

"About five thousand shares."

"We'd better go down to Green's," Frank observed, referring to the lobby
of the principal hotel. "We're not through yet. There'll be more trading
there."

He led the way to find Wingate and his brother Joe, and together they
were off, figuring up some of the larger phases of their purchases and
sales as they went.

And, as he predicted, the excitement did not end with the coming of the
night. The crowd lingered in front of Jay Cooke & Co.'s on Third
Street and in front of other institutions, waiting apparently for some
development which would be favorable to them. For the initiated the
center of debate and agitation was Green's Hotel, where on the evening
of the eighteenth the lobby and corridors were crowded w