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"Oh," replied Butler, still not gathering the significance of it.
"It's burning down the business section there, Mr. Butler," went on Cowperwood ominously,
"and I fancy it's going to disturb financial conditions here to-morrow. That is what I have come to
see you about. How are your investments? Pretty well drawn in?"
Butler suddenly gathered from Cowperwood's expression that there was something very wrong.
He put up his large hand as he leaned back in his big leather chair, and covered his mouth and
chin with it. Over those big knuckles, and bigger nose, thick and cartilaginous, his large, shaggy-
eyebrowed eyes gleamed. His gray, bristly hair stood up stiffly in a short, even growth all over
his head.
"So that's it," he said. "You're expectin' trouble to-morrow. How are your own affairs?"
"I'm in pretty good shape, I think, all told, if the money element of this town doesn't lose its head
and go wild. There has to be a lot of common sense exercised to-morrow, or to-night, even. You
know we are facing a real panic. Mr. Butler, you may as well know that. It may not last long, but
while it does it will be bad. Stocks are going to drop to-morrow ten or fifteen points on the
opening. The banks are going to call their loans unless some arrangement can be made to
prevent them. No one man can do that. It will have to be a combination of men. You and Mr.
Simpson and Mr. Mollenhauer might do it--that is, you could if you could persuade the big
banking people to combine to back the market. There is going to be a raid on local street-
railways--all of them. Unless they are sustained the bottom is going to drop out. I have always
known that you were long on those. I thought you and Mr. Mollenhauer and some of the others
might want to act. If you don't I might as well confess that it is going to go rather hard with me. I
am not strong enough to face this thing alone."
He was meditating on how he should tell the whole truth in regard to Stener.
"Well, now, that's pretty bad," said Butler, calmly and meditatively. He was thinking of his own
affairs. A panic was not good for him either, but he was not in a desperate state. He could not
fail. He might lose some money, but not a vast amount--before he could adjust things. Still he
did not care to lose any money.
"How is it you're so bad off?" he asked, curiously. He was wondering how the fact that the
bottom was going to drop out of local street-railways would affect Cowperwood so seriously.
"You're not carryin' any of them things, are you?" he added.
It was now a question of lying or telling the truth, and Cowperwood was literally afraid to risk
lying in this dilemma. If he did not gain Butler's comprehending support he might fail, and if he
failed the truth would come out, anyhow.
"I might as well make a clean breast of this, Mr. Butler," he said, throwing himself on the old
man's sympathies and looking at him with that brisk assurance which Butler so greatly admired.
He felt as proud of Cowperwood at times as he did of his own sons. He felt that he had helped
to put him where he was.
"The fact is that I have been buying street-railway stocks, but not for myself exactly. I am going
to do something now which I think I ought not to do, but I cannot help myself. If I don't do it, it
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