134 WALL STREET AND THE WILDS 



barrier, and I could make no more intelligent 

 reply than that time would show. 



There was no cable beneath the Atlantic nor 

 wireless to work above it in those primitive days 

 and a steamer often brought the news of half a 

 week. 



Such a steamer exploded a bombshell in the 

 gold market one memorable afternoon. It 

 brought news of a panic in London, of the failure 

 of the great house of Overend, Gurney & Co. 



Every commission house, every foreign ex- 

 change house, and all bankers with connections 

 abroad were peremptorily ordered to remit gold. 

 Every bull, who had parted temporarily with his 

 cherished capital of gold, every bear who had sold 

 what he didn't own, every foreign merchant who 

 had sold his goods for currency in reliance upon 

 exchanging it for gold at 131 per cent, and every 

 speculator who believed the Government was sell- 

 ing real diamonds at the price of paste was repre- 

 sented in the frantic crowd in the Gold Room on 

 that afternoon of panic. A shrieking, half- 

 maniacal mass pressed around Peter Myers, the 



