I had a letter in my pocket to the Prince of Erie. It was from the Hon. Bonaparte Squares, and advised the Prince of certain facts in our possession, and gave him a word of warning. We thought that the letter should go straight to his hands, and I undertook to deliver it. “He'll know who you are, and that will set him thinking,” said McCarthy. “You may talk, if necessary, but don't say a word.” I turned into Broad Street with the letter early in the afternoon of Black Friday--that memorable twenty-fourth day of September, 1869. Those two cunning men, Fisk and his partner, had a corner in gold. For an hour its price had been mounting by leaps and bounds. Wall and Broad streets were like brimming rivers full of boiling rapids and roaring whirlpools and slow eddies and deep undercurrents. Now and then one heard a shrill cry like that of a man drowning. The currents swept me along, wavering from curb to curb. A friend touched my arm and shouted: “Shake, old man! We haven't much to lose, and we're lucky. Every minute now somebody is going broke.” I took my letter to Fisk's office. By that time the price of gold had begun to tumble. Fisk's door was open, and I walked in. There, in the middle of a large room, stood the greatest gambler of an age of hazards. He wore a coat of blue velvet with a white flower in its lapel. He stood by a small table, and was pouring champagne into a row of glasses. A basket of wine lay at his feet. The chairs around the room seemed to be filled with dead men, their faces ghastly white, their eyes staring. A colored boy passed the wine. The Prince of Erie raised his glass, and said: “Boys, when you're picking a goose, the point is to get as many feathers as you can every grab, with as little squawking as possible.” He took the letter I carried, and went with me into the outer office, reading as he walked. Men crowded about us, seeking a word with Fisk. He turned to me, and said: “Sit down a minute; I'm very busy now.” I took a chair, and watched the great gambler as he spoke to the men who pressed about him. He was jocular, good-natured, kindly. “Cheer up, old fellow,” he would say, with an affectionate tap on the shoulder, “your turn will come one of these days.” I waited for an hour or more. The market closed. The half-crazed players in this temple of fortune were moving out of its door. Soon the place was empty of all save the clerks and the Prince himself and two or three hangers-on. As Fisk was turning to me a man of clerical dress and manners accosted him. “Mr. Fisk,” said he, “we need a fence around the cemetery up there in Bennington, and I've come to ask you to help us.” What a finish for that deadly day of torment! The Prince laughed. “A fence around a cemetery!” he exclaimed. “You don't need it. Those who are in can't get out, and those who are out don't want to get in, so what's the use; but here's fifty dollars.” He gave him the money, and turned to me, and said: