“Endeavor divert course of speculation by allowing stocks decline gradually few points without exciting panic. Offer British naval bonds freely below par if necessary in order attract money from grain market. Try reduce price wheat by short sales or otherwise. Devise means for supplying food at fair prices in all distressed districts. Do this without ostentation, and employ existing agencies for distribution if possible. Use fullest discretion and spare no expense to avert serious disaster and violence. Keep me fully advised. If situation becomes more critical will return immediately.” When he put himself face to face with the difficulties which he hoped his message to Wharton would mitigate somewhat, Brent speedily found himself in a bad temper. He put on his hat, set his teeth deep in an unlighted cigar, and presently was strolling aimlessly along the Thames Embankment. He found neither counsel nor encouragement in the face of old Father Thames. The grey river, like the grey city on its banks, was calmly indifferent to the petty concerns of any single generation of human weal and woe. The young man was unreasonably irritated by the absence of sympathy and inspiration in the inanimate things around him. The hopelessness of his problem angered him. “Building the _Mystery_ is the only sensible thing I have done since I landed the stuff in New York,” he told himself bitterly, while he leaned over the stone abutment near Cleopatra’s Needle, and watched with heedless eyes the gathering veil of dusk upon the river. “I was right at the outset--I cannot keep such a quantity of gold; I cannot spend it; I cannot give it away. What am I to do? I have turned only an eighth of it into money, and the financial system of America threatens to come tumbling about my ears. If I should invite a committee of bankers to visit my New York strong-room, and allow them to make known what they saw there, I verily believe anarchy would reign throughout Christendom within a month. I never dreamed that the monetary system of the world was so fragile a structure. Why, a golden ball, only about ten yards in diameter, would crush it in ruins. I solemnly believe that if my vault contained so many tons of dynamite instead of gold, and it threatened the destruction of the whole city of New York, it would be a far less dangerous menace to humanity than it actually is.” The crushing sense of responsibility with which his thoughts suddenly overwhelmed the young man threw into his face a grey look of age, which might have been the reflection of the gathering shadows. His attitude had unconsciously become one of such dejection that a policeman passing by looked at him sharply. A ragged urchin with the inevitable box of matches, which is always the excuse for London mendicancy, accosted Brent at the same moment. “Wax lights, sir, penny a box?” No response.