onishment passed much
unnoticed. The stock world was busy saving itself out of the teeth of
destruction, and the smashing and slugging in Northern Consolidated
attracted the less attention.

Northern Consolidated merited admiring attention; against that desperate
hammering, it stood like a wall of granite. Ten, twenty, forty, eighty,
over one hundred thousand shares were sold that Wednesday; and yet,
marvel of marvels, Northern Consolidated at the day's close had fallen
off no more than six points. It retreated sullenly, slowly, step by step
and eighth by eighth; ever and anon it would make a stand and hold a
price an hour. Other stocks lost twice and threefold the ground; the
stubbornness of Northern Consolidated began to engage the notice of men.
More than one poor "bull" when sore beset that day took fresh heart from
the obstinacy of Northern Consolidated; his own foothold was steadied
and made the stronger for it.

But the old gray buccaneer refused to be denied; he had quit thinking
and begun to act; he would break the back of Northern Consolidated if it
took the last share of those four hundred thousand! His courage never
wavered; he would charge and keep charging; in the end his cavalry work
must tell and the lines of Northern Consolidated crumple up like paper.
All it required was dash and confidence, with an underlying grim
determination to win or die, and Northern Consolidated must yield.

The war was renewed upon Thursday, and staggered fiercely on throughout
the day. Then Friday followed, a roaring, tottering, crashing, smashing
fellow of the two days gone before. Millionaires became beggars and
beggars millionaires between breakfast and lunch.

As on Wednesday, so also on Thursday and Friday the stock which best
sustained itself was Northern Consolidated. And yet no other stock was
so bitterly sold! As against this it should be added that no other was
so bitterly bought! Every offer to sell was closed with at the very
moment of its birth.

At last the end came; the old gray buccaneer could go no further. He had
already oversold his self-fixed limit, having parted with four hundred
and eleven thousand shares. The sales were made in the names of the
various members of the pool, each selling one-eighth of the whole.
Senator Hanway's interest, as well as that of Mr. Harley, being
fifty-one thousand three hundred and fifty shares for each, for reasons
that do not require exhibition, was handled in the name