the young girl.
Then he tried to smile and couldn't. Her instinct guessed on the instant
what had happened. She went to him swiftly and put her arms about his
shoulders as though to support him.

"Never mind, Dad," she said bravely. "Don't you care, money isn't
everything in this world. Whatever happens, you've got me."

CHAPTER XXIX

THE DELUGE

The next day the deluge broke.

On leaving Patsie and her father he had gone down the Avenue in a vain
hope that his father might be in town, hoping to catch him at his hotel.
On his way to his amazement he perceived a long line of curious shapes
stretched along the sidewalk. As he came nearer he saw a file of men and
women, some standing, some seated, camped out for the night. Then he
noticed above all the great white columns of the Atlantic Trust and he
realized that these were the first frightened outposts of the army of
despair and panic which would come storming at the doors on the morrow.
By the morning a dozen banks scattered over the city were besieged by
frantic hordes of depositors, a dozen others hastily preparing against
the impending tide of evil rumor and disaster.

With the opening of the Stock Exchange the havoc began, for with the
threatened collapse of gigantic banking systems orders came pouring in
from all over the country to sell at any price. In the wild hours that
ensued holdings were thrown on the market in such quantities that the
machinery of the Stock Exchange was momentarily paralyzed. Stocks were
selling at half a dozen figures simultaneously, until it became a human
impossibility for the frantic brokers to fulfil the demands that came
pouring in on them to sell at any price. Any rumor was believed and
shouted frantically: receivers were to be appointed for a dozen
institutions: the State Superintendent's investigation was showing
incredible defalcations and misuses of funds. Indictments were to be
returned against the most prominent men in the financial world, and at
the close of the day on top of the wildest fabrications of the
imagination came the supreme horror of fact. Majendie, the president of
the Atlantic Trust, was dead, slain by his own hand. But what happened
this day would be nothing to the morrow.

At Patsie's frantic request Bojo went down in the late forenoon to see
Mr. Swift. He had to wait almost an hour in the outer offices, watching
breathless, frantic men, men of fifty and sixty as panic-stricken as
youngsters of