bow at the fatal minute of decision and point to the sun behind,
just when the black ahead grew unendurable. Please follow Mr. Brownley
that you may be ready, should his awakening to what he has done become
unbearable. Tell him the dreaded morrows are never as terrible actually as
they seem in anticipation."
I overtook Bob just outside the office. I did not speak to him, for I
realised that he was in no mood for company. I dropped in behind,
determined that I would not lose sight of him. It was almost one o'clock.
Wall Street was at its meridian of frenzy, every one on a wild rush. The
day's doing had packed the always-crowded money lane. The newsboys were
shouting afternoon editions. "Terrible panic in Wall Street. One man
against millions. Robert Brownley broke 'the Street.' Made twenty millions
in an hour. Banks failed. Wreck and ruin everywhere. President Snow of
Asterfield National a suicide." Bob gave no sign of hearing. He strode
with a slow, measured gait, his head erect, his eyes staring ahead at
space, a man thinking, thinking, thinking for his salvation. Many hurrying
men looked at him, some with an expression of unutterable hatred, as
though they wanted to attack him. Then again there were those who called
him by name with a laugh of joy; and some turned to watch him in
curiosity. It was easy to pick the wounded from those who shared in his
victory, and from those who knew the frenzied finance buzz-saw only by its
buzz. Bob saw none. Where could he be going? He came to the head of the
street of coin and crime and crossed Broadway. His path was blocked by the
fence surrounding old Trinity's churchyard. Grasping the pickets in either
hand he stared at the crumbling headstones of those guardsmen of Mammon
who once walked the earth and fought their heart battles, as he was
walking and fighting, but who now knew no ten o'clock, no three, who
looked upon the stock-gamblers and dollar-trailers as they looked upon the
worms that honeycombed their headstones' bases. What thoughts went through
Bob Brownley's mind only his Maker knew. For minutes he stood motionless,
then he walked on down Broadway. He went into the Battery. The benches
were crowded with that jetsam and flotsam of humanity that New York's
mighty sewers throw in armies upon her inland beaches at every sunrise:
Here a sodden brute sleeping off a prolonged debauch, there a lad whose
frankness of face and homespun clothes and bewildered eyes spelt, "from
t
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