serves and let the eager buyers have the other five
millions; but before the bonds could be converted the injunction had
been served. The date for the return of the writ was Tuesday the 10th
of March; but the Erie ring needed less time than this and decided on
Monday the 9th as the day to defeat the corner.

Saturday and Sunday were busy days for Drew and his friends. All his
brokers had been enjoined, so a dummy was made the nominal purchaser of
the bonds. This dummy then made his formal demand for the conversion of
the bonds and was refused. All this was done upon affidavit, as it was
the plan of Drew to get from some judge a writ of mandamus to compel
the Erie Railroad to convert the bonds. The stock certificates for
which they were to be exchanged were signed in blank and made ready for
delivery.

Drew had agreed to sell 50,000 shares of stock at 80 to the firms of
which Jay Gould and James Fisk, Jr., were members; they were also Erie
directors. On Monday morning, the 9th of March, the certificates, filled
out in the names of these firms, were handed by the secretary to an
employee who was directed to carry them from the office of the company
in West Street to the transfer clerk in Pine Street. The messenger
left, but in a moment or two returned to report to the apparently
amazed secretary that Fisk had met him outside the door, had taken the
certificates away from him, and "had run away with them." It was true.
The stock certificates had been "stolen" and were beyond the control
of an injunction. The stock certificates next appeared in every part of
Wall Street.

On the same day the Erie representatives applied to Judge Gilbert of
Brooklyn for an injunction on the ground that certain persons, including
Judge Barnard, had entered into a conspiracy to speculate in Erie stock
and to use the process of the courts to aid the speculation. To the
amazement of everybody, Judge Gilbert issued an injunction restraining
all parties to all the other suits from further proceedings; in one
paragraph ordering the Erie directors to continue in the discharge of
their duties--in direct defiance of the injunction of one judge--and in
the next paragraph forbidding the directors to desist in the conversion
of bonds--in direct defiance of another judge. The Drew interests were
now enjoined in every direction. One judge had forbidden them to move,
and another judge had ordered them not to stand still.

It was a strategic position whi