At eight the next morning the train from the Adirondacks arrived, and Montague was awakened by his brother at the telephone. “Have you seen this morning's Despatch?” was Oliver's first word. “I haven't seen it,” said Montague; “but I know what's in it.”
“About the Trust Company of the Republic?” asked Oliver.
“Yes,” said the other. “I was told the story before I telegraphed you.”
“But my God, man,” cried Oliver—“then why aren't you down town?”
“I'm going to let my money stay.”
“What?”
“I believe that the institution is sound; and I am not going to leave Prentice in the lurch. I telegraphed you, so that you could do as you chose.”
It was a moment or two before Oliver could find words to reply.
“Thanks!” he said. “You might have done a little more—sent somebody down to keep a place in line for me. You're out of your mind, but there's no time to talk about it now. Good-by.” And so he rang off.
Montague dressed and had his breakfast; in the meantime he glanced over a copy of the Despatch, where, in the account of the day's events, he found the fatal statements about the Trust Company of the Republic. It was very interesting to Montague to read these newspapers and see the picture of events which they presented to the public. They all told what they could not avoid telling—that is, the events which were public matters; but they never by any chance gave a hint of the reasons for the happenings—you would have supposed that all these upheavals in the banking world were so many thunderbolts which had fallen from the heavens above. And each day they gave more of their space to insisting that the previous day's misfortunes were the last—that by no chance could there be any more thunderbolts to fall.
When he went down town, he rode one station farther than usual in order to pass the Trust Company of the Republic. He found a line of people extending halfway round the block, and in the minute that he stood watching there were a score or more added to it. Police were patrolling up and down—it was not many hours later that they were compelled to adopt the expedient of issuing numbered tickets to those who waited in the line.
Montague walked on toward the front, looking for his brother. But he had not gone very far before he gave an exclamation of amazement. He saw a short, stout, grey-haired figure, which he recognised, even by its back. “Major Venable!” he gasped.
The Major whirled about. “Montague!” he exclaimed. “My God, you are just in time to save my life!”
“What do you want?” asked the other.
“I want a chair!” gasped the Major, whose purple features seemed about to burst with his unwonted exertions. “I've been standing here for two hours. In another minute more I should have sat down on the sidewalk.”
“Where can I get a chair?” asked Montague, biting his tongue in order to repress his amusement.
“Over on Broadway,” said the Major. “Go into one of the stores, and make somebody sell you one. Pay anything—I don't care.”
So Montague went back, and entered a leather-goods store, where he saw several cane-seated chairs. He was free to laugh then all he pleased; and he explained the situation to one of the clerks, who demurred at five dollars, but finally consented for ten dollars to take the risk of displeasing his employer. For fifty cents more Montague found a boy to carry it, and he returned in triumph to his venerable friend.
“I never expected to see you in a position like this,” he remarked. “I thought you always knew things in advance.”
“By the Lord, Montague!” muttered the other, “I've got a quarter of a million in this place.”
“I've got about one-fourth as much myself,” said Montague.
“What!” cried the Major. “Then what are you doing?”
“I'm going to leave it in,” said Montague. “I have reason to know that that report in the Despatch is simply a blunder, and that the institution is sound.”
“But, man, there'll be a run on it!” sputtered the old gentleman.
“There will, if everybody behaves like you. You don't need your quarter of a million to pay for your lunch, do you?”
The Major was too much amazed to find a reply.
“You put your money in a trust company,” the other continued, “and you know that it only keeps five per cent reserve, and is liable to pay a hundred per cent of its deposits. How can you expect it to do that?”
“I don't expect it,” said the Major, grimly; “I expect to be among the five per cent.” And he cast his eye up the line, and added, “I rather think I am.”
Montague went on ahead, and found his brother, with only about a score of people ahead of him. Apparently not many of the depositors of the Trust Company read their newspapers before eight o'clock in the morning.
“Do you want a chair, too?” asked Montague. “I just got one for the Major.”
“Is he here, too?” exclaimed Oliver. “Good Heavens! No, I don't want a chair,” he added, “I'll get through early. But, Allan, tell me—what in the world is the matter? Do you really mean that your money is still in here?”
“It's here,” the other answered. “There's no use arguing about it—come over to the office when you get your money.”
“I got the train just by half a minute,” said Oliver. “Poor Bertie Stuyvesant didn't get up in time, and he's coming on a special—he's got about three hundred thousand in here. It was to pay for his new yacht.”
“I guess some of the yacht-makers won't be quite so busy from now on,” remarked the other, as he moved away.
That afternoon he heard the story of how General Prentice, as a director of the Gotham Trust, had voted that the institution should not close its doors, and then, as president of the Trust Company of the Republic, had sent over and cashed a check for a million dollars. None of the newspapers printed that story, but it ran from mouth to mouth, and was soon the jest of the whole city. Men said that it was this act of treachery which had taken the heart out of the Gotham Trust Company directors, and led to the closing of its doors.
Such was the beginning of the panic as Montague saw it. It had all worked out beautifully, according to the schedule. The stock market was falling to pieces—some of the leading stocks were falling several points between transactions, and Wyman and Hegan and the Oil and Steel people were hammering the market and getting ready for the killing. And at the same time, representatives of Waterman in Washington were interviewing the President, and setting before him the desperate plight of the Mississippi Steel Company. Already the structure of the country's finances was tottering; and here was one more big failure threatening. Realising the desperate situation, the Steel Trust was willing to do its part to save the country—it would take over the Mississippi Steel Company, provided only that the Government would not interfere. The desired promise was given; and so that last of Waterman's purposes was accomplished.
But there was one factor in the problem upon which few had reckoned, and that was the vast public which furnished all the money for the game—the people to whom dollars were not simply gamblers' chips, but to whom they stood for the necessities of life; business men who must have them to pay their clerks on Saturday afternoon; working-men who needed them for rent and food; helpless widows and orphans to whom they meant safety from starvation. These unhappy people had no means of knowing that financial institutions, which were perfectly sound and able to pay their depositors, might be wrecked deliberately in a gamblers' game. When they heard that banks were tottering, and were being besieged for money, they concluded that there must be real danger—that the long-predicted crash must be at hand. They descended upon Wall Street in hordes—the whole financial district was packed with terrified crowds, and squads of policemen rode through upon horseback in order to keep open the streets.
“Somebody asked for a dollar,” was the way one banker phrased it. Wall Street had been doing business with pieces of paper; and now someone asked for a dollar, and it was discovered that the dollar had been mislaid.
It was an experience for which the captains of finance were not entirely prepared; they had forgotten the public. It was like some great convulsion of nature, which made mockery of all the powers of men, and left the beholder dazed and terrified. In Wall Street men stood as if in a valley, and saw far up above them the starting of an avalanche; they stood fascinated with horror, and watched it gathering headway; saw the clouds of dust rising up, and heard the roar of it swelling, and realised that it was a matter of only a second or two before it would be upon them and sweep them to destruction.
The lines of people before the Gotham Trust and the Trust Company of the Republic were now blocks in lengt............