"Yes. Here is the full million he has been talking about, and there seem to be more securities in the box. You have saved the day for us. We should have gone to wreck without you," I replied. "Well, I’ve been fuming and fretting all these days because I was so useless, but now if you’ll take me to the carriage I’ll go home with my self-respect quite restored." "It was you that made the battle worth while," I murmured. My return to the office brought an outburst of joy. At my announcement of the result, Brown jumped up with an enthusiastic whoop, and lumbered about the room with awkward capers. Then he checked himself suddenly, and very shamefacedly begged my pardon. "I haven’t done that since I was a boy, sir," he said. And I believed him. With the business once more on a solid basis, I walked over to Partridge’s office to relieve his anxiety on the subject of Wharton Kendrick’s solvency. He had gone to the Exchange, and I followed him thither. Pine Street was still thrilling with the energy of a steam-engine working at high pressure. Waves of excitement agitated the crowds that hung about the entrance of the Stock Exchange, and there was the familiar succession of roars and barks with which the traders in stocks find it necessary to transact their business. Yet I thought I saw a weakening of interest among the speculators--a lessening of the tension among the excited men who were following the course of the market. I leaped to the hope that the crisis was passing. As I reached the steps of the Exchange the confused roar of the crowd was interrupted. Three short, sharp explosions crackled upon the air with staccato distinctness and the clamor hushed for a moment with a suddenness as startling as the shots themselves. A dozen yards down Pine Street a thin cloud of blueish smoke rose and drifted away on the morning breeze. For a moment the crowd surged back as though in fear, and I saw a bent, white-bearded man standing with a revolver in his hand, looking down at a prostrate something on the pavement. A few trailing threads of smoke floated up from the revolver’s muzzle. Then there was a forward rush, and the crowd closed in; but in that momentary glimpse I had recognized the bent form and dreamy face of Merwin. The hush gave way to shouts. Men were running from all directions. The crowd pushed closer. Windows overlooking the place were suddenly filled with excited observers, questions were eagerly exchanged, and the cry rose: "Peter Bolton has been shot!" At the name of Bolton the blood bounded through my arteries with suffocating force, and I pushed my way through the throng with feverish energy. When I broke through the ring that surrounded the prostrate form, a policeman was just laying his hands on Merwin, and raising his dub as if to strike him. The old man handed his revolver to the officer, and cried: