nous, pathetic. In the dusk of the
dreary Sunday afternoon, when the city had apparently retired to Sabbath
meditation and prayer, with that tinge of the dying year in the foliage
and in the air, one caught a sense of something grim and gloomy.

"Hey, boy," called Cowperwood, listening, seeing a shabbily clothed
misfit of a boy with a bundle of papers under his arm turning a corner.
"What's that? Chicago burning!"

He looked at his father and the other men in a significant way as he
reached for the paper, and then, glancing at the headlines, realized the
worst.

ALL CHICAGO BURNING

FIRE RAGES UNCHECKED IN COMMERCIAL SECTION SINCE YESTERDAY EVENING.
BANKS, COMMERCIAL HOUSES, PUBLIC BUILDINGS IN RUINS. DIRECT TELEGRAPHIC
COMMUNICATION SUSPENDED SINCE THREE O'CLOCK TO-DAY. NO END TO PROGRESS
OF DISASTER IN SIGHT.

"That looks rather serious," he said, calmly, to his companions, a cold,
commanding force coming into his eyes and voice. To his father he said
a little later, "It's panic, unless the majority of the banks and
brokerage firms stand together."

He was thinking quickly, brilliantly, resourcefully of his own
outstanding obligations. His father's bank was carrying one hundred
thousand dollars' worth of his street-railway securities at sixty, and
fifty thousand dollars' worth of city loan at seventy. His father
had "up with him" over forty thousand dollars in cash covering market
manipulations in these stocks. The banking house of Drexel & Co. was on
his books as a creditor for one hundred thousand, and that loan would be
called unless they were especially merciful, which was not likely.
Jay Cooke & Co. were his creditors for another one hundred and fifty
thousand. They would want their money. At four smaller banks and three
brokerage companies he was debtor for sums ranging from fifty thousand
dollars down. The city treasurer was involved with him to the extent of
nearly five hundred thousand dollars, and exposure of that would create
a scandal; the State treasurer for two hundred thousand. There were
small accounts, hundreds of them, ranging from one hundred dollars up
to five and ten thousand. A panic would mean not only a withdrawal of
deposits and a calling of loans, but a heavy depression of securities.
How could he realize on his securities?--that was the question--how
without selling so many points off that his fortune would be swept away
and he would be ruined?

He figured briskly the while he waved