So I did have a bulletin for Old Hickory Monday mornin'.
"It's all over but the shoutin'," says I.
CHAPTER XIX
SOME HOOP-LA FOR THE BOSS
I must say it wa'n't such a swell time for Mr. Robert to be indulgin' in any complicated love affair. You know how business has been, specially our line. And our directors was about as calm as a bunch of high school girls havin' hysterics. Jumpy? Say, some of them double-chinned old plutes couldn't reach for a glass of ice water without goin' through motions like they was shakin' dice.
It's this sporty market that had got on their nerves. You know, all these combine rumors—this bunk about Germany buyin' up plants wholesale, and the grand scrabble to fill all them whackin' big foreign orders, with steamer charters about as numerous as twin baby carriages along Riverside Drive. Why, say, at one time there you could have sold us ferryboats or garbage-scows, we was so hungry for anything that would carry ocean freights.
And, of course, with Old Hickory Ellins at the helm, the Corrugated Trust was right in the thick of it. About twice a week some fool yarn was floated about us. We'd sold out to Krupps and was goin' to close; we'd tied up with Bethlehem; we'd underbid on a flock of submarines and was due for a receivership—oh, a choice lot of piffle!
But a few of them nervous old boys, who was placid enough at annual meetin's watchin' a melon bein' cut, just couldn't stand the strain. Every time they got fed up on some new dope from the Wall Street panic peddlers, they'd come around howlin' for a safe and sane policy. I stood it until here the other mornin' when a bunch of soreheads showed up before nine o'clock and proceeds to hold an indignation meetin' in front of my desk.