Wayne had, during the summer of nineteen hundred and seven, given little heed to the whispered rumours of approaching panic. The Great Prosperity had become an old story, and pessimists had predicted its termination for several years without shaking faith in it. On Saturday, the twenty-sixth of October, business closed confidently; before Monday morning a mysterious stifling fog had stolen over the country. It did not seem possible that any human agency could have so thoroughly diffused the word--whatever it was--that paralyzed the financial energy of the remotest village, for it was paralysis, not panic. The newspapers ignored the situation and suppressed the truth; a few men around mahogany director’s tables alone dealt in facts; the rest of the country groped among rumours. Money went into hiding; banks drew the curtains over paying-tellers’ windows and calmly declared that there was no cause for alarm. Finance whistled in a graveyard and everyone pretended that nothing was the matter. Colonel Craighill, astute student of affairs, fed the journals with optimistic statements affirming the perfect security of the national glory as proved by credible statistics. Everybody was rich, yet nobody had any money; credits were never sounder, but nobody could borrow a cent. The Great Prosperity had been followed by the Great Scare and yet there was no panic in the strict sense of the term. Colonel Craighill was encouraged by his business friends to talk in the newspapers; no one else was so plausible, no one else could so deftly enwreathe the smiling brow of Mammon. His pronouncements soothed the fretful and put to shame those dull persons who had been disposed to question the edicts of the Mahogany Tables. If Colonel Craighill said that Finance is a science not intended to be understanded of the people, it must be so, and mere ignorant mortals did well not to bother their poor heads about it. Colonel Craighill, believing firmly that merit and length of tenure should be favoured in promotions, had installed as Walsh’s successor an accountant who had been chief book-keeper in the office for many years. Walsh had mildly suggested Wayne, but Colonel Craighill rejected the recommendation. “The suggestion does credit to your kindness of heart, Walsh, but--you must know it is impossible.” Paddock called on Wayne at the office one afternoon to find him bending studiously over a mass of papers. Wayne greeted his old friend amiably. “Don’t be afraid! I’ll not bite you this time.” He cleared a chair of papers and bade the clergyman make himself at home.