the brokers: "We haven't anywheres near the cash to pay for our stocks outright. Borrow from the banks, even though you have to pay ten per cent. interest."

"But we can't get money at ten per cent.,"

answered the brokers.

"Then pay fifteen," said the customers.

"But we can't get it at fifteen," came the answer. "The rates for money have gone up to 160 per cent. There's a terrible tightening. No one was looking for it. We've got to have the cash, or we can't carry your stocks a moment longer."

"Then let the stocks go," came back the last answer; "throw them on the market, and do it before anybody else begins."

You can imagine, when a thousand people begin to sell, what a slump takes place. The money market is the key to the stock market. They who control the money rate control also the stock rate. Stocks began to tumble right and left. Many stop-loss orders were uncovered. Prices sagged point after point - thirty points in all. point meant one dollar in our pockets for we were dealing in.

And every

every

share

The air

People everywhere began to curse us. round about us three men was fire and sulphur. Men couldn't get money to carry on their business. Merchant princes, who had inherited the business from their fathers through several generations, lost

it now in a night. This was the time of the year when ordinarily money would flow out to the South and West to pay the farmers for the crops which they had been working all spring and summer to bring to harvest. But now that money couldn't flow, and so these farmers in a dozen states also began to hurl their curses at us. Many of them had been counting on the money from their crops to pay off mortgages. Some were driven from their homes, and their houses sold.

In fact, the curses got so loud after a while that I kind of got scared. I hadn't thought the thing would kick up such a rumpus. It almost looked as though our lives weren't safe. They might burn down my house over my head, or stab me on a street corner. So I got out of the thing. My shirt fits close, but my skin fits closer. I told Gould and Fisk that I wasn't going to be with them in this lock-up deal any longer my life was too precious. If they chose to be dare-devils and stand out against a whole country rising up in wrath against them, they could do it. But for my part I was going to make my peace with my fellow men. So I released the money I was hoarding, and was glad to be out of the thing at last.

E

XXXIII

VEN though I drew out of this lock-up deal, I got a good share of the blame. In fact, people seemed to curse me more than they did Gould and Fisk; because they said these other two were younger - were pupils of mine. And that I was chargeable for getting them into these plundersome habits, as they called it. If I had ever cared much for the speech of people, I suppose I'd have taken the thing to heart.

But I never cared what people were saying, so long as they didn't do anything but talk. Talking doesn't hurt. You can pass it by. This lockingup of greenbacks had netted us so fine a penny that we could afford to stand a lot of abuse. Besides, the people whose money we had got were not able to get back at us. We were protected from lawsuits by means of our standing in with Tweed and his crowd. We were also able, because of this political influence, to show the people who were all the time reviling us that we were pretty powerful in New York City and were not to be abused.

There, for instance, was that man Bowles, who owned a sheet up in Springfield. He had been

picking at me and my Erie crowd for a long time back. A lot of the newspapers, anyhow, were now beginning to snarl and snap at us: "Erie Rascalities," "National Infamy," "Railroad Burglary," "Drew at the Head of a Piratical Horde of Plunderers' what not! One of them, a Bill Bryant, editor of the New York Post, got what he deserved. Tweed's Judge, Barnard, right from the judge's bench, called him, "the most notorious liar in the United States." And now this other fellow, Bowles, was also to be taken down a peg or two. For Bowles had come out with a pitchfork article against us, and against Jimmy in particular. This time he went too far, and we hit back. Jimmy was the last one of us, anyhow, whom they ought to have hit. Because he stood in with Tweed and his crowd even more than Gould or I.

So one day soon after, this man Bowles was down in New York City, attending a meeting of the New England Society at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. He was standing in the hotel office. There he was approached by Jack McGowan, the deputy sheriff, and another. One of them passed on beyond Bowles, then turned, seized him by the arms, and began to shove him towards the street door, whilst the other held a paper in his face, a warrant for his arrest. Once in the street, they pushed him into a carriage which was in waiting, and drove rapidly to the Ludlow Street Jail. This was eight o'clock

at night. Bail was fixed at fifty thousand dollars. Bowles had so many friends that he could probably have raised it. But all the details had been arranged so thoroughly that now the sheriff's office was closed for the night; and so bail couldn't be received. Bowles asked a friend to carry the news of his arrest to his wife, who was in poor health at the Albemarle Hotel, and asked for writing materials to make out the note; but this was held back for a time. Because the idea was to punish him once for all, by some hours in solitary confinement. By ten o'clock the news of his arrest had got out and there was a lot of his friends gathered at the jail, such as Mr. Dana, Mr. Bond and General Arthur. But the jailer said he couldn't let any one see the prisoner. They looked up the sheriff and found him at a party which was being given at the house of Mr. Brown, on Fifth Avenue, to celebrate a Tammany victory. The sheriff excused himself for a minute, and getting out of sight, didn't come back. Bowles's friends went over to the sheriff's house, but they couldn't get anybody out of bed. So the prisoner had to spend the night behind the bars. Of course, in the morning his friends who had been up all night, such as Mr. Dunn, Cyrus W. Field, and the others, got the bail bond, and by eleven o'clock he was free. But he had gone through an experience which must have taught a lesson to the pen-and-ink fellows far and wide.