This was my situation on that eventful day when the news of the sinking of the Maine was telegraphed over the country, and even gilt-edged securities began to tumble, to slide downhill in a mad whirl. In such times collateral shrank like snow before a south wind.
All the morning I had sat in my office with a telephone at my ear, and it seemed to me that but one word came from it—Collateral! collateral! Where was it to be had? Finally, I hung up the receiver of my telephone and leaned back in my chair, dazed by the mad whirl along which I was being carried. My secretary opened the door and asked if I would see So-and-so and the next man. A broker was clamoring to get at me. They all wanted one thing—money. Their demands came home to me faintly, like the noise of rain on a window.
"Jim," I said to the man, "I am tired. I am going home."
"Going home?" he gasped, not believing his ears.
"Tell 'em all I am going home! Tell 'em anything you want to."
While the young man was still staring at me, Slocum burst past him into the room. Even his impassive face was twisted into a scowl of fear.
"Harris is out there," he said hurriedly. "He says some one is selling Meat Products common and preferred. Big chunks of it are coming on the market, and the price has dropped fifteen points during the morning."
I said nothing. Anything was to be expected in this whirlwind.
"Do you suppose it's Dround's stock?" he asked.
"Perhaps," I nodded. "It don't make much difference to us whose it is."