But that last night had come the news of the great Allegheny Central strike, no longer to be suppressed by the telegraph or the company, born of that riotous meeting which our friend Derwent had so vainly tried to check and James Starbuck had fomented, coming from the races and his sister’s pretty pony-carriage that emulated Mrs. Gower’s own. The stock had dropped a fraction actually before his own first bid was heard; and he knew that the message had flashed all over the country, “opening weak.” There was a very maelstrom about the Allegheny Central sign--he found it easy to keep in the centre of the whirl, however, and bought it manfully. But soon he found the reason of this; he was the only broker that was buying. Some of the young men that had been at Tamms’s dinner he saw, upon the outskirts of the crowd, and tried to wink at them encouragingly; but evidently the news of the strike, or some other warning, had frightened them, for they held aloof. He could hardly pretend to keep account of the stock that he was buying, though he jotted as rapidly as he could on his bit of paper. A telegram was thrust into his hand; he read it hurriedly; it was from Tamms--“Keep it up--strikers reported starving.”--“Confound ’em, they can’t starve before to-morrow, though,” thought he; but he went on taking all stock they offered; and it seemed as if all the world was offering stock. It was a terrible hour. He looked furtively at the clock, the while he kept on bidding. Some minutes of the “call” still remained. A messenger forced his way through the crowd, with a note from the office. It was from their banking-clerk: “Money ten per cent. Fechheimer has called for margin.” Curse the rate of money; what cared he what it cost if they had only got it? Why in heaven didn’t Lauer tell him that? And he wiped the sweat from his brow and went on bidding. And now there was a sudden eddy in the crowd, and it opened inward and he saw Deacon Remington himself. Townley’s face fell, despite him; he was not yet old enough to be quite a perfect gambler; and there was a sort of awe-struck hush, as the ranks of the Greeks might have hushed before Troy when Achilles took the field. “Five thousand at seventy-five,” said old Remington, turning a wad of tobacco in his cheek. “Take it,” said Charlie, coolly. Now seventy-five was nearly two whole points below the last quoted sale; which had been a little lot of two hundred shares sold by--alas, shall we say it? Of such, however, is the friendship of Wall Street--his old friend Arthur Holyoke. Charlie was reckless now, and had nailed his colors to the mast; a pretty sure sign, by the way, that a man is beaten.