ied up in banks that might never again
open their doors.

Stuart, stung to desperation by their infamous charges, attempted at
first to repel them. He stopped at last in disgust and maintained
afterward a dignified silence.

From the first day of the run Bivens had laughed in the face of the
crowd that besieged the door of his big Broadway bank. He stood on top
of the granite steps and shouted in their faces:

"Come on, you dirty cowards! I've got your money inside waiting for
you, every dollar of it, one hundred cents on the dollar!"

The crowd made no reply. They merely moved up in line in stolid silence
a little closer to the door. Each day this line had grown longer.
Bivens was not worrying. The king had spoken. The people outside did
the worrying. They had lost faith in everything and every man. What
they wanted was cash. They camped on the doorstep at night and in grim
silence held their place in line.

The folly of these people in their insane efforts to wreck Bivens's
bank was making impossible a return to normal business.

Stuart determined to face this crowd and have it out with them. He
believed that a bold appeal to their reason would silence his critics
and allay their insane fears.

He told Bivens of his purpose over the telephone, and the financier
protested vigorously:

"Don't do it, Jim, I beg of you," he pleaded. "It will be a waste of
breath. Besides, you risk your life."

"I'll be there when the bank opens at ten o'clock to-morrow morning,"
was the firm answer.

Stuart left his office at three and hurried to his room. He wished to
be alone and collect the vague ideas of passionate appeal which he felt
rioting through his mind. He stood by his window looking across the
square. The fall winds had strewn the grass with dead leaves and the
half-bare limbs swayed desolately. The big houses on the north side,
were unusually quiet. He could see crepe fluttering from two doors. The
widow of the dead president of a suspended bank lived in one of them;
in the other the widow of a great man who was found dead in his office
the second day of the panic. He had been buried yesterday.

A feeling of stupid depression crept over his senses, and held them in
its deadly embrace. He couldn't think. He gave up the effort and asked
Harriet to go with him for a ramble over the hills, up the Hudson. They
took the subway to the end of the line, climbed to the top of the hills
overlooking the river, sat down in