"Don't stop to talk--hurry!"

Her wedding-gown! She wondered if she would ever need it.

As her car neared the business district she could feel in the air such
an electric tensity as one might expect to find at the verge of a
battle-field.

At first it was only a spirit of heightened excitement in the street
crowds; and the way men ran to meet the newsboys half-way. Then it was
humanity jostling about the doors of a bank with the excitement of
swarming bees. Across City Hall park came a glimpse of surging throngs
at the bulletin boards, and the unpleasant chorus of voices as fresh
bulletins went up.

* * * * *

Hamilton Burton had reached his office that morning at eight-thirty and
was ready upon their arrival to confer with those lieutenants whom he
had ordered to be with him at nine. Len Haswell appeared with the
lack-luster seeming of a jaded spirit and though Burton had on past
occasions chosen him as leader of every fierce assault on the floor,
because of his quick brain, his commanding physique and the voice that
could boom out like a heavy gun over the pandemonium of a frenzied
exchange, he now eyed his gigantic broker dubiously. This was no day for
his lieutenants to carry into that Gehenna which he meant to precipitate
senses dulled, or hearts cast down. This morning's work called for such
spirit as carries forward a tide of bayonets thirsting for blood back of
the trenches they charge. There must be the ferocity of barbarians
bearing knife and torch: of the hordes of the Huns and Vandals. There of
course was Hardinge, a man who, had he not been a broker, might have
made a headquarters detective, so hard and devoid of humanity was the
fashion in which he went about his work. His nature was that of a cock
tossed into the pit or a bull turned into the ring. Such men Hamilton
wanted now, for into the five hours of the Stock-Exchange day he meant
to crowd such a sum of mad disaster and panic conflagration that the
history of the Money World should be beggared for a comparison. They had
tauntingly named him the Great Bear, but this day should demonstrate
that heretofore he had been only a gentle and playful cub. Cash--cash,
cash! Such had been his watchword and he had stamped on the world of
finance a belief that his command of gold was endless. Even should he
reach the end of his resources with his task unfinished, he knew that
his tremendous nerve was in itself unlimited back