In Wall Street the effect was all that Mr. Bayard foretold. Prices began to melt and dwindle like ice in August. Panic prevailed; three brokerage firms fell, a dozen more were rocking on their foundations.
In the midst of the hubbub, Senator Hanway sent for Richard. Our statesman's smile was bland, his brow untroubled.
"You see I do not forget," said Senator Hanway sweetly. "I promised that I'd give you an exclusive story when the committee on Northern Consolidated was ready to report. Here is the report, it was finished last evening; I have added a brief interview to explain it."
Richard's impulse was to ask a dozen questions; he restrained himself and asked none. Richard was not so fond of fiction as to invite it. He sent the report and interview to the Daily Tory, and dispatched a private message to Mr. Bayard, giving him the news and congratulating him on his unerring gifts as a seer.
CHAPTER XVII
HOW NORTHERN CONSOLIDATED WAS SOLD
When the President of these United States so dauntlessly flourished the Monroe Doctrine in the German face, and shook the Presidential fist beneath the German nose, the flourishing and fist-shaking were accomplished through the medium of a special message to Congress which—a clap of thunder from a cloudless sky—made its appearance in House and Senate upon a certain Tuesday afternoon at four of the congressional clock. The hour of four had been settled upon to diminish as much as might be, so the President said, the chances of an earthquake in the New York stock market, which closed at three. In San Francisco, which is three hours younger than New York, the winds of disastrous speculation blew a hurricane that afternoon; but no one east of the Mississippi cares what happens in San Francisco. Besides, the New York hurricane was only deferred.
Tuesday afternoon, after word of that Presidential fist-shaking had soaked into the souls of men, speculative New York went nervous to the frontiers of hysteria. Tuesday night, speculative New York couldn't sleep; it sat up till morning, for, like cattle, it could smell in the breeze the coming storm. Wednesday heard the crash; and the crashing continued unabated throughout Thursday and Friday. The papers of that hour in attempting to describe stock conditions drew exhaustively on such terms as "tornado," "blizzard," "simoon," "maelstrom," "cyclone," "landslide," "avalanche," and whatever else in the English language means death and devastation. No one found fault of those similes, which were justified of the hopeless truth. Values were beaten as flat as a field of turnips. The best feature was that no banks failed; two or three of the weaker sisters wavered, but the big, burly concerns gave them the arm of their aid and led them through.
Days before the smash, that osprey pool had perfected the last fragment of its arrangements. The old gray buccaneer, who had charge of the pool's interests, was as ready for action as was Mr. Bayard. The latter stock-King was perhaps 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.