aps the only one in the Street who possessed a
foreknowledge of what daring deeds our White House meditated. To Mr.
Bayard the secrets of Courts and Cabinets were told, for he had an agent
at the elbow of every possibility. The old gray buccaneer was not so
well provided; none the less, with decks cleared, guns shotted,
cutlasses ground to razor-edge, he was prompt on the instant to put
forth against Northern Consolidated now when the tempest which lashed
the market favored his pirate purposes.

Those four millions which had been decided upon as the fund of the
osprey pool were banked ready to the hand of the old gray buccaneer.
Storri, who had been losing money, exhausted himself in providing the
five hundred thousand which made up his one-eighth of the four millions.
By squeezing out his last drop of credit, he succeeded in gathering
those thousands; once gathered, he tossed them into the pool's fund as
carelessly as though they had been nothing more than the common
furniture of his pocket, without which he would not think of beginning
the day. Storri at least was a magnificent actor.

In collecting those five hundred thousand dollars, Storri, among other
securities, put up the French shares. He thought nothing of that, since
following victory over Northern Consolidated they would be back in his
hands again. Incidentally, a gratifying thing happened, something in the
nature of a compliment or a concession, which he attributed to the
snobbish eagerness of Americans to pay homage to his nobility. Fatuous
Storri; he should never have looked for compliment or concession or
snobbish adulation in a plain lend-and-borrow traffic of dollars and
cents! Men will buy a coat of arms; but they will not take a coat of
arms in pawn. No; Storri, instead of feeling flattered, should have
grown suspicious when the gentleman from whom he borrowed those five
hundred thousand proposed to let him have the full value of his
securities if in return he were given the right to confiscate should the
loans not be repaid on the nail. Why not? The new arrangement meant no
real risk; the security might always be sold in case of default. And
under the arrangement offered, Storri's credit would be enlarged by
twenty per cent. He agreed, and had immediate advantage of the fact.
Drawing to the last dollar, he made his share of the pool's four
millions good.

When the storm descended Wednesday morning, the old gray buccaneer was
instantly in the midd