"Corn!" Adoree was shocked, incredulous; her eyes glittered with the fire of fanaticism; she no longer saw in this man an enemy, a vile creature branded with the mark of the beast, but a fellow-enthusiast--a surprisingly ignorant one, to be sure, but an enthusiast for all that, and therefore bound to her by unbreakable bonds. Live steam would have been more easily confined than the vast fund of technical knowledge with which she was crammed. "You should have fed soft food and sour milk," she began. "Buttermilk would have been all right, and in that way your cows would have been self-supporting. You need a good pasture with a duck-farm. When I was in Germany I saw the most wonderful incubator--a child could operate it. I'd like to show you some brooder-house plans I had drawn over there. You see, you made your first mistake in choosing fresh-water. If I had a good location near salt-water--not too near--and proper surroundings, I'd show you something about ducks. I'd start with a thousand--that's plenty--then kill for the market as they quit laying, and mix the stock right, and in three years--" Bob Wharton signaled frantically to his wife, but there was no stopping the discussion that had begun to rage back and forth. It lasted until the conclusion of the meal, and it was only with an effort that Adoree tore herself away. She was in her element, and in a little time had won the critic's undivided attention; he listened with absorption; he even made occasional notes. As the two girls dressed hurriedly for the theater, Adored confessed: "Golly! I'm glad I stayed. He's not bright; he's perfectly silly about some things, and yet he's the most interesting talker I ever heard. And--CAN'T he play a piano?" CHAPTER XVII Hannibal Wharton arrived in New York at five o'clock and went directly to Merkle's bank. At eight o'clock Jarvis Hammon died. During the afternoon and evening other financiers, summoned hurriedly from New England shores and Adirondack camps, were busied in preparations for the struggle they expected on the morrow. During the closing hours of the market prices had slumped to an alarming degree; a terrific raid on metal stocks had begun, and conditions were ripe for a panic. Hammon had bulked large in the steel world, and his position in circles of high finance had become prominent; but alive he could never have worked one-half the havoc caused by his sudden death. That persistent rumor of suicide argued, in the public mind, the existence of serious money troubles, and gave significance to the rumor that for some time past had disturbed the Street. Hammon's enemies summoned their forces for a crushing assault. In this emergency Bob's father found himself the real head of those vast enterprises in which he had been an associate, and until a late hour that night he was forced to remain in consultation with men who came and went with consternation written upon their faces.