to continue to be thrown
on the market. It is possible that Hull & Stackpole may have to
liquidate in some way. One thing is certain: unless a large sum of
money is gathered to meet the claim against them in the morning, they
will fail. The trouble is due indirectly, of course, to this silver
agitation; but it is due a great deal more, we believe, to a piece of
local sharp dealing which has just come to light, and which has really
been the cause of putting the financial community in the tight place
where it stands to-night. I might as well speak plainly as to this
matter. It is the work of one man--Mr. Cowperwood. American Match
might have pulled through and the city been have spared the danger
which now confronts it if Mr. Hull and Mr. Stackpole had not made the
mistake of going to this man."

Mr. Arneel paused, and Mr. Norrie Simms, more excitable than most by
temperament, chose to exclaim, bitterly: "The wrecker!" A stir of
interest passed over the others accompanied by murmurs of disapproval.

"The moment he got the stock in his hands as collateral," continued Mr.
Arneel, solemnly, "and in the face of an agreement not to throw a share
on the market, he has been unloading steadily. That is what has been
happening yesterday and to-day. Over fifteen thousand shares of this
stock, which cannot very well be traced to outside sources, have been
thrown on the market, and we have every reason to believe that all of
it comes from the same place. The result is that American Match, and
Mr. Hull and Mr. Stackpole, are on the verge of collapse."

"The scoundrel!" repeated Mr. Norrie Simms, bitterly, almost rising to
his feet. The Douglas Trust Company was heavily interested in American
Match.

"What an outrage!" commented Mr. Lawrence, of the Prairie National,
which stood to lose at least three hundred thousand dollars in
shrinkage of values on hypothecated stock alone. To this bank that
Cowperwood owed at least three hundred thousand dollars on call.

"Depend on it to find his devil's hoof in it somewhere," observed
Jordan Jules, who had never been able to make any satisfactory progress
in his fight on Cowperwood in connection with the city council and the
development of the Chicago General Company. The Chicago Central, of
which he was now a director, was one of the banks from which Cowperwood
had judiciously borrowed.

"It's a pity he should be allowed to go on bedeviling the town in this
fashion," observed