“When? Where? How? Hasn’t the Bank failed? And when did a bank fail and a stockholder receive a dollar? Gracious heavens!”
And with this ejaculation, Mr. Townsend turned away and walked hastily in the direction of his place of business, murmuring to himself, “Ruined! ruined! ruined!”
At his counting-room he found a letter from a correspondent in Philadelphia, announcing the failure of the Bank, but advising him by all means not to sacrifice his stock, nor be alarmed at the low price to which those interested in its depression would at first cause it to fall. Mr. Townsend read over this letter, and then laying it aside, murmured to himself, as he bowed his head upon a desk,
“Ruined! ruined! ruined!”
To this, and only to this conclusion, could his bewildered mind come.
But, at length, the very extremity and almost hopelessness of the condition into which he found himself so suddenly reduced, aroused his mind into a more active state.
“I must not sit idly here,” he said. “If any thing is to be saved, let me try to save it. Not sell! Yes, I will sell at any price, turn the proceeds into gold, and bury it in my cellar.”
Under this new impulse, Mr. Townsend, after calming himself by a strong effort of the will, left his counting-room for the purpose of obtaining information as to the actual condition of the Bank, the price at which the stock was held, and the ultimate probable result, as determined in the minds of those who possessed the most accurate information.
But he found every body astounded and bewildered at the unexpected event. There was no quotation of the stock whatever, except at a very low nominal price. Those who did, and those who did not, hold scrip, alike spoke of the folly of selling at present. Every one said—“Wait.”
The merchant returned to his counting-room, more undecided than when he went out, and feeling quite as deeply impressed with the idea that all was hopeless. The next thoughts that began to pervade his mind, were of his family. No one at home knew of the particular disposition that he had made of his property. His wife and daughters might hear of the failure of the Bank, without having their hearts filled with alarm, or dreaming that, in this event, was foreshadowed their fall from affluence to poverty. For the present, at least, he determined to keep them in ignorance of the approaching danger, while he watched the progress of events, and seized upon the first favorable opportunity to clutch, with a vigorous grasp, the remnant of his shattered fortune. To do one thing his mind was made up, and that was to sell so soon as there should be any thing like a settled state of the market, and the stock from a uniform quotation begin to decline in price. If there was an advance, he would hold on until there came appearance of depression, and then sell, and invest the proceeds in ground rents, the only security in which he had now a particle of faith.