The reporters were admitted. We took care to get all of them in at one time, twenty or more, and held the doors open while the directors, passing through Harbinger’s office, made their august escape. ii When the reporters were gone a stillness seemed to rise about us like an enveloping atmosphere. Receding events left phantom echoes in our ears. Valentine, having gazed for some time fixedly at a non-existent object, looked slowly about him, saying: “The corpse is gone.” Then he went and stood in one of the west windows. I stood at the other. The rain had congealed. Snow was falling in that ominous, isolating way which produces in blond people a sense of friendly huddling, instinctive memory perhaps of a north time when contact meant warmth and security. It blotted out everything of the view beyond Trinity church and graveyard. There was a surrounding impression of vertical gray planes in the windows of which lights were beginning to appear, for it was suddenly dark. The Trinity chimes proclaimed in this vortex the hour of noon. “What day of the month is it?” he asked, clearing his voice after speaking. “The eighteenth.” “Twenty years, lacking two days, I have been president of the Great Midwestern,” he said. “In that time--” He stopped.... Trinity chimes struck the quarter past. “How it snows,” he said, turning from the window. “Well, you see what the railroad business is like. Shall I ask a place for you on one of the New York papers? I promised to do that, you remember, if anything should happen.” “If you don’t mind,” I said, “I’ll stay on here to clear things up a bit.” “I expected you to say that,” he said. “Still, don’t be sentimental about it. Nobody can tell now what will happen. We shall be in the hands of the court. Well, as you like. I have an appointment to keep with counsel. I may not be back today.” He departed abruptly. It occurred to me to go about the offices to see what effect the news was having. That would be something to do. Harbinger, leaning over his desk on his elbows, his head clutched in his two hands, was looking at three models of his stamping device. “How do they take it?” “Take what?” he asked, not looking up. “The news.” “Oh, that! I don’t know. Go ask them yourself.” John Harrier was sitting precisely as I saw him that first time, perfectly still, staring at an empty desk. “Well, it appears we are busted,” I said. “We’ve been busted for about nine months,” he answered, without moving his head. “But now two and two make four again. Thank God, I say. I couldn’t make her look solvent any longer. Arithmetic wouldn’t stand it, and it stands a lot.” In the large back office the clerks were gathered in small groups discussing it. Work was suspended. “Hey!” shouted Handbow. “We’re going to celebrate to-night. A little dinner, _with_, at the Café Boulevard. Will you come?”