eyes.

"I think you'll end in the poor-house, Montgomery Brewster," she said,
with a laugh.

CHAPTER XIII

A FRIEND IN NEED

It was while Brewster was in the depths of despair that his financial
affairs had a windfall. One of the banks in which his money was
deposited failed and his balance of over $100,000 was wiped out.
Mismanagement was the cause and the collapse came on Friday, the
thirteenth day of the month. Needless to say, it destroyed every
vestige of the superstition he may have had regarding Friday and the
number thirteen.

Brewster had money deposited in five banks, a transaction inspired by
the wild hope that one of them might some day suspend operations and
thereby prove a legitimate benefit to him. There seemed no prospect
that the bank could resume operations, and if the depositors in the end
realized twenty cents on the dollar they would be fortunate.
Notwithstanding the fact that everybody had considered the institution
substantial there were not a few wiseacres who called Brewster a fool
and were so unreasonable as to say that he did not know how to handle
money. He heard that Miss Drew, in particular, was bitterly sarcastic
in referring to his stupidity.

This failure caused a tremendous flurry in banking circles. It was but
natural that questions concerning the stability of other banks should
be asked, and it was not long before many wild, disquieting reports
were afloat. Anxious depositors rushed into the big banking
institutions and then rushed out again, partially assured that there
was no danger. The newspapers sought to allay the fears of the people,
but there were many to whom fear became panic. There were short, wild
runs on some of the smaller banks, but all were in a fair way to
restore confidence when out came the rumor that the Bank of Manhattan
Island was in trouble. Colonel Prentiss Drew, railroad magnate, was the
president of this bank.

When the bank opened for business on the Tuesday following the failure,
there was a stampede of frightened depositors. Before eleven o'clock
the run had assumed ugly proportions and no amount of argument could
stay the onslaught. Colonel Drew and the directors, at first mildly
distressed, and then seeing that the affair had become serious, grew
more alarmed than they could afford to let the public see. The loans of
all the banks were unusually large. Incipient runs on some had put all
of them in an attitude of caution, and there was