In the midst of a strenuous forenoon of trading, suddenly, without the slightest warning, both stocks began to sink in price like pigs of lead from a capsized boat. At once I was on the defensive. To prevent a wild market panic during the few minutes consumed in getting telephone connection with the State House, I had to purchase thousands of shares. I knew that something disastrous had happened, but was not prepared for the startling information that came over the wire: "The governor has vetoed the Whitney bill with a savage message." My informant told me that Towle and his men were making for head-quarters on a run. As I hung up the receiver, the bell rang again. In a second my telephone with Whitney's office was in the middle of a spasm. "Have you got the news, Lawson?" "Have I got it? The tape is screaming it.[9] Bay State and your stock are racing for the bottom," I replied. "What shall we do? This is a thunderbolt." "Do?" I replied. "It's for you to say what to do. That's your end, not mine, but from now until three o'clock one thing you must do, or there'll be no further thinking on the subject--protect Dominion Coal--have your brokers on the floor every second and tell them to buy all that's offered. Beat a slow retreat if you must, but prevent a wild break. Things at the Exchange are bad now. I'll take care of Bay State. Look out for Dominion at once, and when you are through I must see you--where?" "At Young's in ten minutes." "I'll be there." Ten minutes later I was in Whitney's head-quarters. There pandemonium reigned; all the cocksureness and bluster of the "machine" had vanished, and it was a horde of clamorous and excited men I found struggling round Towle and Whitney, who vainly sought to stay the panic. It was not disappointment at the governor's message that had so stirred these hardened practitioners of politics, but the terror of impending loss. The majority of the Whitney band, lawyers, lieutenants, and water-carriers had bought one stock or both on margin, and had assured their friends it was safe to plunge to the limit. On earth there is no more pitiable sight than the panic of a herd of novice stock-speculators suddenly awakened to a realization of their ruin. The ticker clicks a sort of death-watch as the merciless tape, without hitch or let up, reels off destruction. To such desperate beings the stock operator--the market-maker--is the straw to save them from drowning, and to him they turn as the one possible source of aid and hope. I only knew these men at sight's end, but they knew me and were sure in their abject plight that I could help them--by what wizardry they never stopped to think. They were terribly certain that unless the market turned, their brokers must have additional margin or their stock would be thrown overboard, sinking prices still lower and bringing down their friends' stock, and so on, like a row of falling bricks.