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Woolens stocks which they held as collateral for the loans.

"What does this mean, Eaversole?" he exclaimed, with white, wrinkled
lips, heavy circles suddenly appearing under his eyes. "Is Melville
trying to ruin everything?"

"No," answered Eaversole, third vice-president of the company. "He's
supporting the market, all except us. He says Dumont must be driven
out of the Street. He says his presence here is a pollution and a
source of constant danger."

The National Woolens supporting group was alone; it could get no help
from any quarter, as every possible ally was frightened into his own
breastworks for the defense of his own interests. Dumont, the brain and
the will of the group, had made no false moves in business, had been
bold only where his matchless judgment showed him a clear way; but he
had not foreseen the instantaneous annihilation of his chief asset--his
reputation.

Giddings sustained the unequal battle superbly. He was cool, and
watchful, and effective. It is doubtful if Dumont himself could have
done so well, handicapped as he would have been on that day by the
Fanshaw scandal. Giddings cajoled and threatened, retreated slowly
here, advanced intrepidly there. On the one side, he held back
wavering banks and trust companies, persuading some that all was well,
warning others that if they pressed him they would lose all. On the
other side, he faced his powerful foes and made them quake as they saw
their battalions of millions roll upon his unbroken line of battle only
to break and disappear. At noon National Woolens preferred was at
fifty-eight, the common at twenty-nine. Giddings was beginning to hope.

At three minutes past noon the tickers clicked out: "It is reported
that John Dumont is dying."

As that last word jerked letter by letter from under the printing wheel
the floor of the Stock Exchange became the rapids of a human Niagara.
By messenger, by telegraph, by telephone, holders of National Woolens
and other industrials, in the financial district, in all parts of the
country, across the sea, poured in their selling orders upon the
frenzied brokers. And all these forces of hysteria and panic,
projected into that narrow, roofed-in space, made of it a chaos of
contending demons. All stocks were caught in the upheaval; Melville's
plans to limit the explosion were blown skyward, feeble as straws in a
cyclone. Amid shrieks and howls and frantic tossings of arms and mad
rushes and m