第70章

He was peculiarly savage in his hatred of all matrimonial deviations.He was a brother of Fanshaw's mother; and she and Herron had been working upon him.But so long as Dumont's share in the scandal was not publicly attributed he remained obdurate--he never permitted his up-town creed or code to interfere with his down-town doings unless it became necessary--that is, unless it could be done without money loss.

For up-town or down-town, to make money was always and in all circumstances the highest morality, to lose money the profoundest immorality.

At twenty minutes past eleven Melville and the president of the other banks of his chain called loans to Dumont and the Dumont supporting group to the amount of three millions and a quarter.

Ten minutes later other banks and trust companies whose loans to Dumont and his allies either were on call or contained provisions permitting a demand for increased collateral, followed Melville's example and aimed and sped their knives for Dumont's vitals.

Giddings found himself face to face with unexpected and peremptory demands for eleven millions in cash and thirteen millions in additional collateral securities.If he did not meet these demands forthwith the banks and trust companies, to protect themselves, would throw upon the market at whatever price they could get the thirty-odd millions of Woolens stocks which they held as collateral for the loans.

"What does this mean, Eaversole?" he exclaimed, with white, wrinkled lips, heavy circles suddenly appearing under his eyes.

"Is Melville trying to ruin everything?"

"No," answered Eaversole, third vice-president of the company.

"He's supporting the market, all except us.He says Dumont must be driven out of the Street.He says his presence here is a pollution and a source of constant danger."The National Woolens supporting group was alone; it could get no help from any quarter, as every possible ally was frightened into his own breastworks for the defense of his own interests.

Dumont, the brain and the will of the group, had made no false moves in business, had been bold only where his matchless judgment showed him a clear way; but he had not foreseen the instantaneous annihilation of his chief asset--his reputation.

Giddings sustained the unequal battle superbly.He was cool, and watchful, and effective.It is doubtful if Dumont himself could have done so well, handicapped as he would have been on that day by the Fanshaw scandal.Giddings cajoled and threatened, retreated slowly here, advanced intrepidly there.On the one side, he held back wavering banks and trust companies, persuading some that all was well, warning others that if they pressed him they would lose all.On the other side, he faced his powerful foes and made them quake as they saw their battalions of millions roll upon his unbroken line of battle only to break and disappear.At noon National Woolens preferred was at fifty-eight, the common at twenty-nine.Giddings was beginning to hope.

At three minutes past noon the tickers clicked out: "It is reported that John Dumont is dying."As that last word jerked letter by letter from under the printing wheel the floor of the Stock Exchange became the rapids of a human Niagara.By messenger, by telegraph, by telephone, holders of National Woolens and other industrials, in the financial district, in all parts of the country, across the sea, poured in their selling orders upon the frenzied brokers.And all these forces of hysteria and panic, projected into that narrow, roofed-in space, made of it a chaos of contending demons.All stocks were caught in the upheaval; Melville's plans to limit the explosion were blown skyward, feeble as straws in a cyclone.

Amid shrieks and howls and frantic tossings of arms and mad rushes and maniac contortions of faces, National Woolens and all the Dumont stocks bent, broke, went smashing down, down, down, every one struggling to unload.

Dumont's fortune was the stateliest of the many galleons that day driven on the rocks and wrecked.Dumont's crew was for the most part engulfed.Giddings and a few selected friends reached the shore half-drowned and humbly applied at the wreckers' camp; they were hospitably received and were made as comfortable as their exhausted condition permitted.

John Dumont was at the mercy of Hubert Herron in his own company.

If he lived he would be president only until the next annual meeting--less than two months away; and the Herron crowd had won over enough of his board of directors to make him meanwhile powerless where he had been autocrat.