to Shotover House was not
as flippant as it might appear, for he had his private car there and a
locomotive at Black Fells Crossing station, and he was within striking
distance of Rochester, Utica, Syracuse, and Albany. Which was what
Harrington thought necessary.

The vast unseen machinery set in motion by Harrington and Quarrier had
begun to grind in May; and, at the first audible rumble, the aspect
of things financial in the country changed. A few industrials began to
rocket, nobody knew why; but the market's first tremor left it baggy and
spineless, and the reaction, already overdue, became a sodden and soggy
slump. Nobody knew why.

The noise of the fray in the papers, which had first excited then
stunned the outside public, continued in a delirium of rumour, report,
forecast, and summing up at the week's end.

Scare heads, involving everybody and everything, from the
District-Attorney to Plank's office boy, succeeded one another. Plank's
name headed column after column. Already becoming familiar in the
society and financial sections, it began to appear in neighbouring
paragraphs. Who was Plank? And the papers told people with more or less
inaccuracy, humour, or sarcasm. What was he trying to do? The papers
tried to tell that, too, making a pretty close guess, with comments
good-natured or ill-natured according to circumstances over which
somebody ought to have some control. What was Harrington trying to do to
Plank--if he was trying to do anything? They told that pretty clearly.
What was Quarrier going to do to Plank? That, also, they explained in
lively detail. A few clergymen who stuck to their churches began
to volunteer pulpit opinions concerning the ethics of the battle. A
minister who was generally supposed to make an unmitigated nuisance of
himself in politics dealt Plank an unexpected blow by saying that he was
a "hero." Some papers called him "Hero" Plank for awhile, but soon tired
of it or forgot it under the stress of the increasing heat.

Besides Plank scarcely noticed what the press said of him. He was
too busy; his days were full days, brimming over deep into the night.
Brokers, lawyers, sycophants, tipsters, treacherous ex-employes of
Quarrier, detectives, up-State petty officials, lobbyists from Albany,
newspaper men, men from Wall Street, Broad Street, Mulberry
Street, Forty-second Street--all these he saw in units, relays,
regiments--either at his offices or after dinner--and sometimes after