The other was called
away then by an engagement in court, which occupied him for several
hours; when he came out, he made for the nearest ticker, and the
first figures he saw were Mississippi Steel--quoted at nearly twenty
points below the price of the morning!
The bare figures were eloquent to him of many tragedies; they
brought before him half a dozen different personalities, with their
triumphs and despairs. He could read in them the story of a Titan
struggle. Oliver had made his killing; but what of Price and Ryder?
Montague knew that most of Price's stock was hypothecated at the
Gotham Trust. And now what would become of it? And what would become
of the Northern Mississippi?
He bought the afternoon papers. Their columns were full of the
sensational events of the day. The bottom had dropped out of
Mississippi Steel, as they phrased it. The wildest rumours were
afloat. The Company was known to be making enormous extensions, and
it was said to have overreached itself; there were whispers that its
officers had been speculating, that the Company would be unable to
meet the next quarterly payment upon its bonds, that a receivership
would be necessary.
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