no bill!"

Consternation reigned. The army was quickly recalled to head-quarters,
and despatched back to the State House to put through every manoeuvre
known to the two veterans--but to no purpose. The Great and General
Court stood its ground, openly defied the army and hurled back into
Towle's teeth all his frantic threats. It was the last day, and the
Great and General Court was intrenched inside the protecting walls of
the State House, and it knew that before it could be compelled to come
forth to face Towle he must come to a decision. A terrible dilemma,
surely, for the amounts promised had run up to such an enormous
aggregate that it was impossible to pay all in so short a time, even if
such had been Whitney and Towle's intention. Yet to pay one or a few of
the dangerous malcontents meant to pay every one; the gang had firmly
banded themselves together.

This was the real moment of panic. Even Whitney and Towle were at their
wits' end. Finally, in desperation, and as a last resort, Whitney rushed
to the governor, threw up his hands, and asked for mercy. "What would
the governor sign?"

Massachusetts' able and fearless Governor Wolcott, who seemed to have
been expecting some such outcome of the battle, gave his answer clear as
an anvil-blow:

"You have told the people your company would give them cheap gas. Bind
yourself to do it by amending the charter so that the highest price your
gas can be sold at will be sixty cents. Then I will sign."

There was nothing else to do.[10] At the last minute the amendment was
inserted. The governor's representative gave the word that it was
satisfactory, and it passed.

I was in my office taking care of the market. Of the stampede I knew
nothing. Suddenly came the word: "The Whitney bill has passed on the
governor's recommendation." Both stocks started to jump; then a halt,
then--I didn't try to stop the decline, for I saw something terrible had
happened. In a few minutes the news was on the Street: "The charter was
not worth the parchment upon which it was engrossed."

The biter had been fatally bitten.

The market closed with the tape and ticker fiercely, exultingly shouting
"Ruin!" with each tick and slip: and that night Whitney's head-quarters
was little better than a mob. Frantic men demanded money, money due to
them for votes, money they had promised for margins to the brokers
before the Stock Exchange opened the next day, and swearing desperate
consequences to W