pletion the masses would be rudely
awakened to a realisation that their savings were invested in the combined
American industries at vastly inflated values, that the few had all the
real money, and that any attempt upon the people's part to regulate and
control the new system of robbery, would be fraught with unparalleled
disaster--not to the "System," but to the people.

Since Bob's return from Europe I had seen him but a few times. Up to
October 1st he had not been near the Stock Exchange or "the Street."
Shortly after the listing of the "People Be Damned," as "the Street" had
dubbed the new trust, he began to show up at his office regularly. This
was the condition of affairs when Fred Brownley called me up on the
telephone, as I related at the beginning of my story, which I did not
realise I had been so long in telling.

My thoughts had been chasing each other with lightning-like rapidity back
over the last five years and the fifteen before them, and each thought
deepened the black mist over my present mental vision. In the midst of my
reflections my telephone rang again.

"Mr. Randolph, for Heaven's sake have you done nothing yet?" It was Fred
Brownley's voice. "Things are frightful here. Bob's brokers are selling
stocks at five and ten thousand-lot clips. Barry Conant is leading
Reinhart's forces. It is said he has the pool's protection order in
Anti-People's and that it is unlimited, but Bob has the Reinhart crowd
pretty badly scared. Swan has just finished giving Conant a hundred
thousand off the reel in 10,000 lots, and he told me a moment ago he was
going over to get Bob himself to face Barry Conant. They're down twenty
points on the average, although they haven't let Anti-People's break an
eighth yet. They have it pegged at 106, but there is an ugly rumour just
in that Bob, under cover of a general attack, is unloading Anti-People's
on to the Reinhart wing for Rogers and Rockefeller, and the rumour is
getting in its work. Even Barry Conant is growing a bit anxious. The
latest talk is that Reinhart is borrowing hundreds of millions on
Anti-People's, and that his loans are being called in all directions. Do
you know Reinhart is at his place in Virginia and cannot get here before
to-morrow night? If Bob breaks through Anti-People's peg, it will be the
worst crash yet."

"All right, Fred," I answered. "I will go over to Bob's right now. I hate
to do it, but there is no other hope."

I dropped the receiver and