Corbin hastened to obey the mandate from Little Washington. He was greatly agitated, but the ruling passion of avarice was strong; in bidding Gould farewell, and before taking his final adieu of the clique, he requested the arch plotter to hand him over his share of the profits. Referring to this incident, Gould said: “I told him I would give $100,000 on account, and that when I sold, if he liked, I would give him the average of my sales. I did not feel like buying any gold of him then.” This was the denouement of the plot against the President, who immediately hastened to big Washington. Now, let me again ask the reader to turn his attention for a moment to the concluding scenes in the speculative drama in Wall Street on Black Friday. How the clique tried to manipulate Assistant-Secretary Butterfield was kept as profoundly secret as possible, and as it turned out, he did not have as much power over the events of that great day as was expected. When somebody charged Fisk with tapping the telegraph wires, however, to obtain information from the Government, he replied: “It was only necessary to tap Butterfield to find out all we wanted.” This was very likely a vain boast of Fisk. On Wednesday, the 22d September, two days preceding Black Friday, the clique, it is believed, owned several millions more gold than there was in the city outside the vaults of the Sub-Treasury. Belden bought about eight millions of gold on that day, while Smith, Gould, Martin & Co. were also heavy purchasers. The clique held a caucus in the office of William Heath & Co., in Broad street, and concluded that it had gold enough to put the price to 200, if it could carry the gold without lending and compel the “shorts” to purchase. But the idea of finding a market for over thirty millions of gold was also a gigantic problem, and they felt the risk of being ground between the upper and the nether millstones of their scheme. On the morning of Thursday another council of war was held in the office of Belden & Co., on Broadway. At this meeting, Gould, Fisk, Henry N. Smith and William Belden were present. The proceedings of this meeting were kept a profound secret, but one result of it was that Belden gave his clerk the famous order to put gold to 144 and keep it there. On that day Belden purchased about twenty millions of gold, the price opening at 141½ and closing at 143½. The chiefs of the Cabal had another private meeting up town that evening. The great question of closing up the transactions on the following day was the chief topic of discussion. These operators held contracts for over $100,000,000 in gold. Gould said that the “short” interest was $250,000,000. The total amount of gold in the city did not exceed $25,000,000, and the difference between this and the aggregate amount of the contracts of the clique was the enormous amount that would have to be settled in the event of a “corner.”