d hypothecated our last share. My personal fortune has
gone into the balance, and so has Hull's. Some one of the outside
stockholders, or all of them, are cutting the ground from under us.
Fourteen thousand shares since ten o'clock this morning! That tells the
story. It can't be done just now--not unless you gentlemen are
prepared to go much further than you have yet gone. If we could
organize a pool to take care of fifteen thousand more shares--"

Mr. Stackpole paused, for Mr. Hand was holding up a fat, pink digit.

"No more of that," he was saying, solemnly. "It can't be done. I, for
one, won't sink another dollar in this proposition at this time. I'd
rather throw what I have on the market and take what I can get. I am
sure the others feel the same way."

Mr. Hand, to play safe, had hypothecated nearly all his shares with
various banks in order to release his money for other purposes, and he
knew he would not dare to throw over all his holdings, just as he knew
he would have to make good at the figure at which they had been
margined. But it was a fine threat to make.

Mr. Stackpole stared ox-like at Mr. Hand.

"Very well," he said, "I might as well go back, then, and post a notice
on our front door. We bought fourteen thousand shares and held the
market where it is, but we haven't a dollar to pay for them with.
Unless the banks or some one will take them over for us we're
gone--we're bankrupt."

Mr. Hand, who knew that if Mr. Stackpole carried out this decision it
meant the loss of his one million five hundred thousand, halted
mentally. "Have you been to all the banks?" he asked. "What does
Lawrence, of the Prairie National, have to say?"

"It's the same with all of them," replied Stackpole, now quite
desperate, "as it is with you. They have all they can carry--every
one. It's this damned silver agitation--that's it, and nothing else.
There's nothing the matter with this stock. It will right itself in a
few months. It's sure to."

"Will it?" commented Mr. Hand, sourly. "That depends on what happens
next November." (He was referring to the coming national election.)

"Yes, I know," sighed Mr. Stackpole, seeing that it was a condition,
and not a theory, that confronted him. Then, suddenly clenching his
right hand, he exclaimed, "Damn that upstart!" (He was thinking of the
"Apostle of Free Silver.") "He's the cause of all this. Well, if
there's nothing to be done I might as well be going. There's