The Commodore ripped out an oath.
“I'll put 'em behind the bars—the suckers!” he exclaimed, with some vehemence.
“I suppose you'll stop buying,” said the gentleman.
“Buying! How can I stop buying?” said Mr. Vanderbilt. “I've got to take all the stock they offer.”
He turned away from us, and, as we were leaving, added:
“If you have information, put it in writing and let me have it to-morrow.”
“I will,” said my friend.
“It's the most deadly trap I ever heard of,” said the gentleman, as we hurried away. “He's got to keep buying the stock as fast as they offer, it. If he doesn't, it will go to nothing and ruin about every one in the Street, including himself, for probably he's borrowed millions on the stock as collateral. And the lower it goes the richer Fisk and his party will become, for they have sold it short; and if the Commodore holds it even they will grow still richer, for they have only to tear it out of the book and hand it over. They have got him between two fires, so that he has to provide them with the weapons for his own destruction. His own fortune is being hurled against him.”
“Why do they wish to ruin him?”'
“Why, their only hope of escape is in his ruin. Don't you see that if they bring him to his knees they have nothing to fear? Otherwise they may go to prison.”