in their abject plight that I could help them--by what wizardry
they never stopped to think. They were terribly certain that unless the
market turned, their brokers must have additional margin or their stock
would be thrown overboard, sinking prices still lower and bringing down
their friends' stock, and so on, like a row of falling bricks.

From their comfortable viewpoint of out-of-temptation virtue, my readers
may regard these lawyers, lieutenants, and water-carriers of Whitney as
bad men, deserving of no sympathy, meeting here a righteous punishment;
but, my word for it--and I know the world and the human ants and spiders
who inhabit it--while they bore no marks of immorality, they were the
average men one meets in one's journey over the bridge between the two
unknowns.

My talk with Whitney and Towle was brief and pointed. It was no time for
pow-wow. It was the moment for action. Men who do things in
stock-markets never waste time over milk that is in the gutter. How to
get new milk to replace that spilt is their care.

"What are you going to do, Mr. Whitney?" I asked.

George Towle started to explain. I stopped him.

"The market is bad," I said, talking quickly. "If time is dribbled, it
will be worse, and--and Boston will be a warm place for you, Towle. It
would not surprise me if it got warm even for Mr. Whitney, when the
desperate men who are filling the brokerage shops and the corridors
outside demand a reason why they were egged on to buy stocks on Mr.
Whitney's word that the governor would sign. No excuses now; I want to
know from Mr. Whitney just what he proposes to do. You both told me the
legislative end was none of my business, and, thank Heaven, it was not.
You said it was your business. Now, how about it?"

Henry M. Whitney is a great general. He also can light his cigar, when
the battle's on, with the friction of a passing cannon-ball.

"I'm going to pass it over the governor's veto," he instantly answered.

"Can you do it?" I asked.

"I can, for I must." He meant it. It needed but one look into his and
Towle's eyes to see they both had read the message on the back of
To-morrow's visiting-card.

"All right," I said. "Let your people have the word, and it must have no
doubtful ring; tell your brokers to buy Dominion Coal, and don't let
them stand on the order of their buying. Dominion Coal must be put back,
regardless of how much it costs or how little you want what you must
buy. I will turn