"
"Well, where do you stand?"
Frank Swan answered for the crowd: "The panic is in full swing. She's a
cellar-to-ridge-pole ripper. They're down 40 or over on an average.
Anti-People's is down to 35, and still coming like sawdust over a broken
dam. Barry Conant's house and a dozen other of Reinhart's have gone under.
His banks and trust companies are going every minute. The whole Street
will be overboard before the close. The governing committee has just
called a meeting to see whether it will not be best to adjourn the
Exchange over to-day and to-morrow."
Bob listened as if he had been a master at the wheel in a gale, receiving
reports from his mates.
There was no trace now of the scene he had just been through. He was cool,
masterful, like the seasoned sea-dog who knows that in spite of the
ocean's rage and the wind's howl, the wheel will answer his hand and the
craft its rudder. "Jim, come over to the Exchange." The crowd followed
along. "We have but a minute and I want to have you say you forgive me,"
he said to me. "I know, Jim, you understand it all, but I must tell you
how sorrowful I am that in my madness I should have so forgotten my
admiration, respect, and love for you, yes, and my gratitude to you, as to
say what I did.
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