banks, vaults, tea-kettles, and
stockings. The country seemed to be going to the dogs. War with the
South or secession was vaguely looming up in the distance. The temper of
the whole nation was nervous. People dumped their holdings on the market
in order to get money. Tighe discharged three of his clerks. He cut down
his expenses in every possible way, and used up all his private savings
to protect his private holdings. He mortgaged his house, his land
holdings--everything; and in many instances young Cowperwood was his
intermediary, carrying blocks of shares to different banks to get what
he could on them.

"See if your father's bank won't loan me fifteen thousand on these," he
said to Frank, one day, producing a bundle of Philadelphia & Wilmington
shares. Frank had heard his father speak of them in times past as
excellent.

"They ought to be good," the elder Cowperwood said, dubiously, when
shown the package of securities. "At any other time they would be. But
money is so tight. We find it awfully hard these days to meet our own
obligations. I'll talk to Mr. Kugel." Mr. Kugel was the president.

There was a long conversation--a long wait. His father came back to say
it was doubtful whether they could make the loan. Eight per cent., then
being secured for money, was a small rate of interest, considering its
need. For ten per cent. Mr. Kugel might make a call-loan. Frank went
back to his employer, whose commercial choler rose at the report.

"For Heaven's sake, is there no money at all in the town?" he demanded,
contentiously. "Why, the interest they want is ruinous! I can't stand
that. Well, take 'em back and bring me the money. Good God, this'll
never do at all, at all!"

Frank went back. "He'll pay ten per cent.," he said, quietly.

Tighe was credited with a deposit of fifteen thousand dollars, with
privilege to draw against it at once. He made out a check for the
total fifteen thousand at once to the Girard National Bank to cover a
shrinkage there. So it went.

During all these days young Cowperwood was following these financial
complications with interest. He was not disturbed by the cause of
slavery, or the talk of secession, or the general progress or decline of
the country, except in so far as it affected his immediate interests. He
longed to become a stable financier; but, now that he saw the inside of
the brokerage business, he was not so sure that he wanted to stay in
it. Gambling in stocks, according