perty owner for his
neighbor who refused to pay an extortionate price for the land. It is
about the width of a front door, and inside there is just about room to
move around. It afforded a queer background for the scene enacted there
that night.

Promptly at 10.30 Addicks and I were at the door, and by 10.32 the
tunnel-like walls of the "spite house" resounded with as illuminating a
verbal interchange of billingsgate biographies as I have ever listened
to. At 10.35 I covered Addicks in a hasty but quite successful retreat
which he beat to our cab. Thence to the Hoffman House, where I summoned
Parker Chandler to aid in the calming of our raving associate. The next
two hours were of the pulse-jumping, vein-tearing kind incidental to
"frenzied finance," but they were not without avail, for Addicks finally
agreed that he might consent to "something" provided the Bay State
equities in the Boston companies were so preserved that he could
eventually get them back into his hands by repayment to Rogers or by the
redemption of bonds.

Having got thus far, I again went after Braman and Foster, who were at
the Hotel Cambridge. We repaired for further conference to the
University Club, which was then in the old A. T. Stewart marble palace
on the corner of Thirty-fourth Street and Fifth Avenue. I shall never
forget that session. It was past midnight, but the three of us battled
with our smoky problem, now good-naturedly, now bitterly. At times it
looked hopeless because of this obstinate demand or that steadfast
refusal. It must have been three o'clock in the morning when I left them
and stepped into the Waldorf for a moment to relieve Moore's vigil. Then
back again to the Hoffman, where Addicks, Chandler, and some Bay State
directors were nodding. By this time I was in no mood to say more than
that I would be over in the morning, and that Addicks should go early to
the National Committee's head-quarters and explain the desperation of
conditions in Delaware to Hanna, Osborne, and their associates. At last
I was free to return to the Brunswick for a few hours' rest.

In the country, cock-crow is the signal to be up and doing. In the city,
the signal to be up and to do is a hoarse, metallic roar that would
drown a million country cock-crows if each particular cock were as big
as the mythical rooster of antiquity and could crow in proportion to his
size. My readers who dwell on the hills and in dales and wheat-fields,
and who are unf